Iman Ahmad October 17, 2008
Prof. Arenstein
English 1000C-133- 70891
Essay 2
Is Wal-Mart good for America?
Wal-Mart is a public corporation that runs a chain of department stores. Wal-Mart is the biggest public corporation in the world by revenue. Founded by Sam Walton whose main objective was delivering always low prices. Now not only are there thousands of Wal-Marts in the United States but there are approximately two thousand nine hundred and eighty stores in fourteen different countries and every store fulfills Walton’s primary aim. So why does this question, is Wal-Mart good for America even a topic for discussion? Wal-Mart’s negativity towards America is mostly behind the scenes but also some are out and about.
Wal-Mart is the most efficient company in the history of American business. It amazingly low prices benefit everyone. It produces everything consumers want to buy. Wal-Mart has an immense product variety. Almost anything you can think of Wal-Mart probably sells it. The store is extremely productive. What I mean by extremely productive is that instead of going store to store for items needed, you can find them all at Wal-Mart, while the kids can get their haircut, or venture off into the electronics section, or magazine aisle, or the clothing department or the sporting sector. A customer can save gas by shopping at Wal-Mart because chances are everything on the checklist is sold at Wal-Mart. Basically the efficiency of Wal-Mart is outstanding and the prices are greatly affordable. So why does the question, is Wal-Mart good for America even a topic for discussion?
The article “One, Two, Three, Four…We don’t Want Your Superstore,” explains just exactly why Wal-Mart is an undesired business, and why Americans don’t want to shop there. One negative Wal-Mart has toward America’s communities is that the store destroys small businesses. Wal-Mart stores continue to grow and are being placed where it is easily accessible. Not only are the stores growing but its adding in more retail departments, like flowers, jewelry, haircutting, optical, and many others. Take Bonnie Neisius’s example explained in the Los Angeles Times, she is a small business owner of a UPS franchise In Las Vegas, Nevada. A Wal-Mart store came about her area near her business. She described how she watched her surroundings businesses close down and her own business decline by over forty five percent. This article was published in the early 2000’s and her business now is probably shut down thanks to Wal-Mart. There was a good chance that Neisius’s small business was her primary source of income, and now she probably is off working somewhere where she isn’t her own boss and just a regular employee.
I personally have experienced a small business shut down in my area of Goshen, New York. All our shopping for groceries is done at Wal-Mart in Middletown, New York ten minutes from Goshen New York. Across from the superstore was a home run barbershop. This barbershop where I have gone to only once is officially out of business because the Wal-Mart across the street also does haircuts also. Now to make things more efficient, while my mother shops around for the groceries and whenever I need a haircut I would go to Wal-Mart. Gas is at an all time high so why would someone drive to the barbershop then to Wal-Mart for groceries, when both can be accomplished at Wal-Mart.
Small businesses make communities unique. These small businesses like a flower shop, or gift shop have been in communities for years. A person’s parents and grandparents have been shopping at these local shops and they have been the community’s representation. But now slowly Wal-Mart is putting each small store out of business.
Another problem Wal-Mart poses towards America’s communities is that the company provides inadequate benefits, and local taxpayers are forced to recover the burden. Wal-Mart’s healthcare system is so poor and the coverage is so expensive that many workers chose to go without it. So without Wal-Mart’s healthcare benefit, the employees instead get their benefit through state programs like Medicaid. Many even have to accept hospital charity for their health problem. A 2004 article in the New York Times published a study about Wal-Mart’s employees in Georgia. It found that about ten thousand children of Wal-Mart employees were in state healthcare systems that cost local taxpayers over ten million dollars a year. The same article states that in one North Carolina hospital, that over five hundred and eighty nine people out of one thousand nine hundred patients were Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid. Also some other Wal-Mart employees were uninsured and either had to accept hospital charity or accept full responsibility (frontline).
Wal-Mart’s healthcare premiums are also relatively high for an associate’s salary. Currently Wal-Mart employees have to pay thirty-three percent of their healthcare costs. This equals to be a little over thirty dollar for the individual and between one hundred and thirty-two dollars and two hundred and thirty dollars for families every month. Critics also state that Wal-Mart encourages its employees to apply for public assistance programs. In an interview, Jon Lehman, a former Wal-Mart manager thought he was “doing a good thing,” telling his employees to apply. But he realized that Wal-Mart doesn’t even pay a living wage to its employees or help them with their medical costs (frontline).
Wal-Mart’s healthcare benefits are a problem because it burdens the local taxpayers, and provides inadequate help to its employees. The employees of Wal-Mart need to live a healthy life and the communities don’t need hefty loads. However, Wal-Mart continues to deliver on each causing problems throughout.
Wal-Mart also has a big connection with the most populous country in the world, China. For Wal-Mart, China has become the cheapest and most reliable production source. China’s imports secure the fact of Wal-Mart’s everyday low prices. However, Wal-Mart’s focus on delivering the extremely low prices, which help contain the United States inflation, does have a negative affect. Wal-Mart’s shifts overseas to China for the production of consumer goods result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs here in America. (Frontline). And with the struggling of today’s U.S economy, job losses are the least affordable right now
U.S involvement in trade with China is also developing into a heavy burden. The United States and China also have another negative between them. America says China is guilty of dumping- that is, producing exports and selling them in the United States below the price in China, or below what it cost to manufacture and ship abroad. American companies have accused China of dumping various good from shrimp to household goods. The fact that Wal-Mart obtains over seventy percent of its items from China hurts the U.S industry. The U.S industry helps the economy from further falling, and Wal-Mart isn’t really helping the U.S industry. Already the trade deficit with China is over one hundred and twenty four billion dollars, which puts the U.S in an even bigger hole.
Wal-Mart’s involvement with China is further affecting the negatives of the U.S economy. Thousands of Americans are losing jobs as well as quality of home life. The U.S economy today is in a crisis and Wal-Mart and other ventures are not really helping with dealing with China and other out sourcing.
Overall, Wal-Mart affects America in a positive way but also a negative way. Wal-Mart supplies hundreds of thousands of different products at extremely low prices. In fact all of Wal-Mart’s product’s prices are between eight to thirty-nine percent lower than other store’s prices. This fact makes Wal-Mart probably the most affordable superstore in the world. And over eighty percent of Americans shopped at Wal-Mart at least once in the last year. The other percent took into account Wal-Mart’s negative affects towards American communities.
Wal-Mart negatives towards its workers health benefits, and the destruction of small businesses, and its involvement with China as a production platform doesn’t stop people from shopping there. Wal-Mart has sparked many strikes by its workers, petitions have been organized to stop building Wal-Marts, and Wal-Mart has been taken to court several of times. Still Wal-Mart continues to thrive and continues to grow and continues to be the world’s most efficient business. Wal-Mart looks like it’s going to be here for centuries whether for the good or the bad.
