Why Is Walmart Bad For America

707 Words2 Pages

Garrett Hiles, Jake Esp, Isaiah Brown, Thomas Boland
Mr. Brown
Business-7
October 24, 2014
Walmart, a Bad Deal for America? In 1962 Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart in Rodgers Arkansas. His business model was based off of low prices and fair deals for his customers. By 1967 Wal-Mart grew to 24 stores and in 1968 Wal-Mart had expanded to states near Arkansas, and by 1970 Wal-Mart became public. In 1991 Wal-Mart became a country wide store, with sales topping 32 million dollars. President Bush even gave Sam Walton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Wal-Mart seemed to be the “all American” store. How could a successful store like this possibly be bad for the economy? Let me start with the positives of Wal-Mart in America. Wal-Mart …show more content…

Let me start off with the first reason why Wal-Mart is bad for America, “Walmart workers average just $8.81 hour. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based on Walmart’s definition of full-time. This is less than two-thirds of the poverty line for a family of four, and well below what most families actually need to get by.” (walmart1percent.org) $8.81 per hour is not a livable wage. These workers have families to look out for; some have kids to look out for. Out of these workers with kids some of them are single parents. This means there is only one income coming in so they have no choice but to apply for government aid in the form of welfare or food stamps, according to Forbes.com “Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.” (Forbes.com). 6.2 billion dollars is a substantial amount of money that our government doesn’t have. In 2005 Wal-Mart had 2,700 employees just in Arizona on a state funded healthcare plan that was paid by the tax payers. And the best part of Wal-Mart abusing the tax payers is that they received a 1.2 billion dollar tax break in 2007. Also the Walton family uses tax loopholes to avoid billions in taxes. If Wal-Mart claims to be a good thing for America how could they put such a great burden on the tax payers of America? It’s not just the workers who are suffering from Wal-Marts low pay, the tax payers are

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