Walmart Breaks Ground in Granby, NY May 8, 2007
Posted by Greg Jerome in Economics, New York State, Politics, Poverty.trackback
I heard Monday morning that Walmart began construction of a new store in Granby, NY, near the city of Fulton. This is a good occasion to look at the effects Walmart has on a community.
I dislike Walmart for several reasons; low wages, lack of health care, poor quality products, and poor service. For these reasons, and many others, I will not shop there. The most common defense I hear of Walmart is that it creates jobs. Even WRVO, a news outlet I find to be fair and accurate, reported on this story with unmitigated optimism. They were touting Walmart’s ability to bring jobs to the region.
Research shows that when Walmart opens a store, that community either loses jobs, or gains very few. This excerpt is from a paper written by three college professors citing that trend. The last “fact” on this page is a statistic I found a few times; for every two jobs Walmart creates, the community loses three jobs. These figures are huge when you look at the quality of the jobs that are created; low wage, low benefit, low hours. How is this good for the community?
The only reason to shop at Walmart is the prices. I can’t bring myself to spend money in a store that is so destructive to the community and it’s employees. I encourage you to take your money elsewhere.
I Will Shop at Walmart as they pay better wages and benifits than Kmart or Target,Price Chopper, P&C, and the list goes on and on.
The only thing I buy at WalMart is type writer ink catridges for my Brother Word Processor (as far as I know WalMart is the only place that still carries them in stock).
Only bloated local businesses with excessive profit margins go out of business. We are capitalists. What is the point of encouraging inferior methods of commerce? Is it a tragedy for ma and pa business to go out of business simply because it has always been that way? I for one, want to retrieve my goods in a cost-effective and time-effective fashion. The part time jobs Wal-Mart offers don’t give any less benefits than the part time jobs which vanish when it replaces obsolete businesses with obsolete business models.
personally, i work for walmart. yes it sucks. but i can’t complain because it pays my bills. i get more than minimum wage being a cashier. no matter what store you shop at you’re always going to find something you don’t like about it, poor customer service, lack of merchandise on the shelves, and the list can pour on and on. it’s a part of life, deal with it