Description (1)



Walmart a great contributor to communities it serves, providing quality jobs and offering a choice of fresh, healthy and affordable products at our every day low prices. Walmart continues to provide some of the best jobs in the retail industry with competitive pay, benefits and the opportunity for advancement.



wage disparity



Local leaders and academic researchers are increasingly interested in the community-level effects of ‘‘big box’’ retailers and discount department stores. Wal-Mart, in particular, has received considerable and mostly negative public media and congressional attention, in addition to spawning a number of hostile websites.1 The interest in Wal-Mart is not surprising as it
As one of the world’s most valuable companies, Walmart an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2014, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Walmart remains a family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family, who own over 50 percent of Walmart.
Impacts that are generally considered positive include one-stop shopping, extended hours, free parking, lower prices, jobs for people who work in the stores, and tax revenues for the local community.
CEO
Impacts that often raise concern include driving local merchants and "main street" retailers out of business, traffic, costs to the municipality, low wages and benefits for store workers, and loss or lack of local character and sense of community.



Intro/Opening (1)



Walmart Stores, Inc. used to link the CEO’s salary to sales figures at established stores. But when declining sales no longer led to big pay raises, the board simply changed the magic formula to use total companywide sales instead. By that measure, the CEO could still receive a pay hike (Morgenson, 2011).


has contributed to Increased American inequality, particularly increased skewness at the very top of the income distribution, has received enormous attention in the last few years.


interests went on the offensive against unions.



effectively preventing hundreds of thousands of working Americans from joining the middle class.


Our wages and benefits typically meet or exceed those offered by a majority of our competitors.



Founded by a folksy entrepreneur whose notions of thrift, industry, and the square deal were pure Ben Franklin, this company is not a tyrant but a servant. Passing along the gains of its brilliant distribution system to consumers, its farsighted managers have done nothing less than democratize the American dream. Its low prices are spurring productivity and helping win the fight against inflation. It is America's most admired company.


Income inequality is the issue of our generation and it is fueled  in large part, by an economy that mostly creates low-wage jobs.

There is an evil company in Arkansas, some say. It's a discount store-a very, very big discount store-and it will do just about anything to get bigger. You've seen the headlines. Illegal immigrants mopping its floors. Workers locked inside overnight. A big gender discrimination suit. Wages low enough to make other companies' workers go on strike. And we know what it does to weaker suppliers and competitors. Crushing the dream of the independent proprietor-an ideal as American as Thomas Jefferson-it is the enemy of all that's good and right in our nation.








Opposing argument (2-3)




That decline in union power made possible and was increased by both outsourcing at home and the movement of production to developing countries, which were facilitated by the break-up of the New Deal coalition and the rise of the New Right (Domhoff, 1990, Chapter 10). It signals the shift of the United States from a high-wage to a low-wage economy, with professionals protected by the fact that foreign-trained doctors and lawyers aren’t allowed to compete with their American counterparts in the direct way that low-wage foreign-born workers are.


Wal-Mart paid 30 percent less than its unionized grocery store counterparts and, even more importantly, generally lacked the features

needed to sustain their families: Regular, full time work hours, retirement security, comprehensive healthcare, and a career ladder.


This gross inequality in income is largely the result of concrete policy choices made by our political elites, which have weakened unions—which are the only policy force that consistently stands up for the economic interests of middle and working class Americans—and empowered organized business interests.


Just as Wal-Mart exports sprawl, it exports bad labor practices. Uni-Comerce, the global trade union for commercial workers, characterizes Wal-Mart as “an obsessively anti-union company at home and abroad.”



The company “builds its competitive advantage on low wages, poor benefits, and a squeeze on producers. In addition, the Wal-Mart jobs may be part time as opposed to full time, leading to lower family incomes, all else equal.



Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation, with 1.3 million employees. H. Lee Scott, its chairman, is paid almost $23 million — more than five times Roche's inflation-adjusted salary. Yet Scott's compensation excites relatively little comment, since it's not exceptional for the CEO of a large corporation these days. The wages paid to Wal-Mart's workers, on the other hand, do attract attention, because they are low even by current standards. On average, Wal-Mart's non- supervisory employees are paid $18,000 a year, far less than half what GM workers were paid thirty-five years ago, adjusted for inflation. And Wal-Mart is notorious both for how few of its workers receive health benefits and for the stinginess of those scarce benefits.
While boasting the necessity for low-wages, the corporation was essentially handing down costs to taxpayers in the form of publicly-funded health insurance and food assistance programs.



Through predatory pricing, it can force both large and small competitors out of business,” according to Uni-Commerce.
“Worldwide, Wal-Mart is the most serious threat to employment, wages, and working conditions in commerce.”


The problem with low pay and unions is one of the main obstacles the company faces in its international expansion plans. The rift between unions and Wal-Mart, say financial analysts Fallstreet.com, is “intensifying with each global step the company makes.”















The first and perhaps most direct effect is the demise of existing mom-and-pop-type operations that is caused by the arrival of Wal- Mart in a community. We hypothesize that this in turn may have a number of consequences.
Poverty rates will rise if retail workers displaced from existing mom-and- pop-type operations work for Wal-Mart at lower wages because they have no alternatives (this assertion has been contested in the literature), all else equal.
The demise of mom-and-pop stores leads to the closing of local businesses that supplied those stores, such as wholesalers, transporters, logistics providers, accountants, lawyers and others. Many of these are higher-paying jobs. The study concludes that it is likely that these more highly-educated individuals depart from the rural community in pursuit of better opportunities elsewhere, contributing to the rural-to-urban exodus over the last decade, leaving behind those with fewer opportunities and raising the poverty rate by reducing the number of nonpoor households in the denominator.

Your argument/conclusion (1)






There is strong evidence that big box retail stores affect the economy, environment, and character of their local communities and surroundings.
Usually associated with large chains such as Target and Walmart, a superstore sells a wide range of products, such as toys,electronics, clothing, groceries, furniture, sporting goods, and automotive supplies. These types of stores advertise "one stop shopping", where customers can stop just once at their store and buy everything they need or want.
--(Most superstores are located on a single level, unlike other department stores which are often multi-leveled).


They were built upon patriotism, be American buy American was their mantra. Look around today's Wal-mart and see if you can find anything that was made in America. Now after beating down and putting out of business all it's major competitors Wal-Mart has been building Super Stores so they can compete against grocery stores as well, and now gas stations right in their parking lots. I have noticed where ever Wal-mart exists, there seems to be a Salvation Army or Goodwill Store near by. I guess that's so that the businessmen that were driven out, have some place affordable to shop.





Big box retailers, focusing on Wal-Mart offers its community with
products at low prices in a one-stop shopping environment.
people are able to get things that they would buy anyway for less money
low competitive prices, jobs, and .




Walmart appeals to everyone, of every income class.





But in actuality,


The owners of Wal-mart is contributing to the widening gap of income inequality and darkening the American Dream for middle income families.


increasing prevalence of low-wage work, the decline of traditional unions (due to ourbroken labor laws), and the unconventional organizing that is trying to fill the void.




by providing only part time jobs,
killing mom and pop retail store,







it especially appears to people of low and middle incomes. But a very substantial proportion of Walmart shoppers are poor. Poor people like Walmart. Poor people shop at Walmart, and spend a disproportionate percentage of their income there.










Walmart helps Americans save money and live better. it offers products at low prices in a one-stop shopping environment.





Walmart associates describe the opportunity and benefits the company offers to all, including educational opportunities, health care plans for as low as $40 per month