Quote:
The cheap TV is the draw - the equivalent to a free drink at a casino. The hope is that the shopper then picks up the stand, the cables, the Blu-Ray player, and few movies. Notice, electronics are usually in the back of the store. If Walmart's lucky, maybe you'll pick up a bag of chips and some soda while you're there. And maybe you're running low on laundry detergent and socks. As you're walking through, you notice the endcap with Snuggies on sale and think, "I've got to have one. They're so cheap."
It's been noted that there's a clear correlation between neighborhoods with a Walmart and an increase in poverty.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... DBB.d01t01 No, it's not proof of causation, and there are certainly other factors at play here, but Walmart and the big box stores have had a negative net effect on the middle and lower classes.
First of all, that study makes recommendations about whether public subsidies should be given to Walmart...something that I do not advocate. In fact, one of the worst things that Walmart did in recent years was call for an increase in the minimum wage...since they already pay nearly twice the minimum wage, the effect was to use government action to force Walmart's competitors out of business...grocery stores, K-Mart, etc.
As for the increase in poverty, in those same neighborhoods it is probably true that at the same time in history as the increase in Wal-Mart stores, there has also been an increase in:
-The amount of french fries sold
-The minimum wage
-The amount of crack cocaine (and later meth) sold
-The amount of foreclosures and evictions
-Rap music vs. Rock music
-High-fructose corn syrup consumption
All of those correlate with poverty, yet none have a direct relationship to Walmart, and not all of them have a direct relationship even to poverty itself.
Wal-Mart began in the southern U.S., traditionally one of the poorest areas of the country...and that was the key to its success, because it offers previously unaffordable things at lower prices. Yes, people have bought luxuries that they didn't need there, but in most cases Wal-Mart didn't give them the credit cards that they bought them with. Neither did Wal-Mart tell everyone to buy a huge house that they couldn't afford, pass laws to price themselves out of a job, eat every meal in restaurants, drive hummers, or do drugs. So I'm a bit confused about why Wal-Mart is singled out in some of these campaigns.
Personally, I live about 45 minutes away from a Walmart, in what is statistically the poorest county in my Walmart-less region. I go there about once a month, with a list...and behold! No personal debt.
17 Oct 2011, 1:05 pm
