Walmart is the largest retailer in the United States.

You might think most of what is bought and sold in America is filtering through Jeff Bezos and his Amazon website, but you would be wrong.

According to international professional services company Deloitte, the Arkansas-based superstore pulled in $648 billion in revenue in 2024, compared to second-place Amazon’s comparatively paltry $251 billion.

Walmart is the largest grocery provider. Dollar General may edge the company in terms of number of locations, but when you consider how many dollar stores could fit in a supercenter, Walmart takes the gold in square footage. Late owner Sam Walton’s family has a collective net worth that would put them just behind Elon Musk — maybe a touch ahead depending on the way the market goes on any given day.

But the company needs help in the form of your tax dollars.

No, this isn’t about payroll, although the retailer is often taken to task over its wages versus the number of employees who still rely on government programs to make ends meet. It’s about the hand they are stretching out to Harrisburg.

Walmart is asking Pennsylvania to give it $7.5 million under the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program for demolition of Monroeville Mall, which the company purchased in February.

It’s sad to see the mall — once a vibrant center of activity — reduced to rubble. But if there is no future in malls and Walmart has ideas about revitalization, so be it. It can’t be preserved in amber just because “Dawn of the Dead” was filmed there, right? At least there is a vision for some kind of future, unlike many aging malls.

But that $7.5 million is interesting. Are we to believe the project requires this gift from the state?

The math and the company’s evergrowing footprint tells us that Walmart is not in financial straits. Indeed, $7.5 million is a thin sliver of what the company makes in a day.

So why come to Pennsylvania asking it to underwrite the demolition? And is that where the requests will stop? It’s hard to know. The future of the mall property isn’t well articulated, other than to say it would include retail, restaurant, entertainment and public spaces. Sounds a lot like any mall or like a mixed-use district a la The Waterfront.

However, the request for funding sounds like so many projects where multibillion dollar companies leverage their plans with an open palm. This is how the billionaire owners of sports teams get public money to build stadiums. This is how factories are built with promises of tax waivers only to abandon the area when the agreement ends.

Is there anything illegal about it? Walmart is taking advantage of an existing opportunity. It’s smart business.

But amid the outrage about government waste and cutting spending, doesn’t it seem like our wealthiest companies could foot their own bills instead of reaching into public pockets?

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