The Brief
Get Up To SpeedWalmart has long been a target for critics of corporate expansion, but does the company really deserve the scrutiny? Some say that the big-box retailer devastates small communities by pushing out locally-owned businesses, mistreats its workers through low pay and restrictive work hours, and forces American companies to use cheap foreign labor to produce goods at low cost. Others point to the fact that Walmart provides countless jobs to low-skilled American workers, sells affordable goods, has increasingly become a leader in sustainability, and attracts new consumers and businesses to its neighborhoods. Has Walmart been good for America?
View Debate PageJohn Tierney
- Contributing Editor, City Journal
Has any organization in the world lifted more people out of poverty than Wal-Mart?
Wal-Mart has been one of the most successful antipoverty programs in America.
Richard K. Vedder
- Economist & Author, The Wal-Mart Revolution
Richard K. Vedder and Ken Jacobs discuss Walmart’s role in America.
But while their anticorporate message might resonate against certain corporate targets, Democratic politicians should think twice about viciously–and unfairly–tarnishing Wal-Mart simply to score political points with union leaders.
Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was the quintessential American success story, and, with the help of many associates and investors, the company he founded has arguably done more to help ordinary Americans, especially the poor and disadvantaged, than any other institution in our society.
Richard Vedder discusses his book, The Wal-Mart Revolution, with National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.
The full text of The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy written by Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox and published by the American Enterprise Institute.
Nelson Lichtenstein
- Professor, UC Santa Barbara & Author, The Retail Revolution
An interview with Nelson Lichtenstein.
As even a casual glance at the newspapers and television makes overwhelmingly clear, Wal-Mart is an inescapable touchstone for so many of the social, urban, labor, and global issues that confront 21st century Americans.
Historian Nelson Lichtenstein discusses the impact of Wal-Mart on both the American and the global economy in his new book, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.
Some Americans are resigned to the idea that the dominance of dead-end jobs is an inevitable fact of our economy. We believe it’s important to take a brief look back at the decline of the hourly career, and the bright spots in our past and recent history that offer hope for a turnaround in job standards.
Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein sheds light on the new surge of Walmart protests.
If and when thousands of Wal-Mart hourly workers make it clear, to their store managers as well as the public, that collectively they want a more predictable work life, then Wal-Mart’s famed “culture” will indeed begin to change, and much for the better.
Amy Traub
- Associate Director of Policy and Research, Demos
Richard French spoke with Amy Traub of Demos about what Walmart and other companies could do to help their minimum wage employees who are having a hard time making ends meet during the holiday season.
Here are 10 ways Walmart has facilitated America’s industrial decline.
Retail salesperson is the most common job in the country, and the industry’s low pay and erratic scheduling leaves employees — especially the 7.2 million women who disproportionately fill these low-wage jobs — in poverty.
If Walmart redirected the $6.6 billion spent on share repurchases in 2013 toward investment in human capital, it could give its 825,000 low-wage employees a raise of $5.13 per hour, boosting productivity and sales.
Walmart workers have been fasting in the weeks leading up to Black Friday, demanding a living wage.
In this research brief, we utilize the Living Wage Calculator of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to evaluate the adequacy of Walmart’s wage increase in supporting workers and their families.
Background
As American shoppers move online, Walmart fights to defend its dominance.
A timeline of Walmart’s founding and development.
Walmart’s statistics on employment, financials, and leadership.
It seems just about everyone has heard of or shops at Walmart. But we bet you didn’t know these surprising facts about the global retail giant.
America's "favorite" supermarket—at least in terms of where we spend the most money—also appears to offer the worst grocery shopping experience.
For
From its sophisticated inventory systems to its pricing innovations, Wal-Mart has blazed a path that numerous other retailers are now following, many of them vigorously competing with Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart's critics allege that the retailer is bad for poor Americans. This claim is backward.
Against
In this op-ed, Egan argues that Walmart and Starbucks are “poised to do more to affect the huge chasm between the rich and everybody else than anything that’s likely to come out of John Boehner’s House of Representatives.” Read Walmart’s response here.
When a Walmart comes to town, the local economic framework is immediately thrown into turmoil.
The retail giant is always watching.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a means of survival for families earning minimum wage.
Wage Increases
2016 action lifts average hourly full-time rate to $13.38; New paid time off plan gives full- and part-time associates greater control.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc would have to spend an additional $4.95 billion if it were to raise the minimum wage for its hourly employees in the United States to $15 per hour from the current $10 per hour, according to an estimate by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research.
Big Box Retailers
A series of studies that shed light on the effects of big-box retailers on other businesses, employment, wages, crime and health.
