Why Is Walmart Bad For The Economy
Is Wal-Mart bad for the Economy?
Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States, and the largest public corporation by revenue. While the argument can be made that the United States’ largest employer cannot possibly be bad for the economy, Wal-Mart’s habit of dominating markets and use of less-than-honest labor and business practices has contributed to the steady decline of the traditional American small business. Wal-Mart’s conundrum with the economy is that it provides premium services and goods at a price well below that of any competitor. The size and scope of the company’s operations allows for them to put pressure on the companies that produce these goods. Wal-Mart often uses outsourced labor and imported goods as a means …show more content…
Wal-Mart removes this freedom and forces businesses to produce what they want and how much of it they want. There is no other choice. For example, Wal-Mart essentially held the Vlassic pickle company hostage over the one-gallon jar of pickles they wanted priced under three dollars. Wal-Mart refused to allow Vlassic any room on the deal, stating that if they wouldn’t produce it they would go somewhere else to get the product. Vlassic was forced to compromise the image of quality they had worked so hard to produce over the years and submit to Wal-Mart’s demands of a massive jar of pickles at a ridiculously low price. This type of behavior hurts the economy by forcing producers to compromise their profits and increase Wal-Mart’s. The rich get richer and the poor get …show more content…
If it doesn’t benefit them, then they’re not interested. In 2008 a Minnesota judge ruled that Wal-Mart had violated labor practices more than two million times by forcing workers to work off the clock without pay and not allowing them time for breaks. In 2000, Wal-Mart settled out of court with 69,000 workers in Colorado who also claimed they had been force to work off the clock. In 2005, they were forced to pay 172 million dollars to 116,000 California employees who had been denied a lunch break on shifts over six hours. In total, Wal-Mart has 53 class action lawsuits over wage and labor violations in the United States. This is not necessarily a massive impact on the economy because these workers aren’t paid a great sum of money, but a company that is willing to compromise the very thing that makes them able to operate in order to try to squeeze a little more profit out of their books is not the kind of place that I want operating in my America.
All-in-all, Wal-Mart does provide jobs. It does provide a place for the uneducated lower-middle class to work for a paycheck. It does bring unbelievably low prices to the end consumer for nearly every item in the store. But what it does not do is help the economy. If the only thing that matters to you in business is profit then you’re in it for the wrong reasons and hurting everyone else in the process. A business that doesn’t respect its workers
Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States, and the largest public corporation by revenue. While the argument can be made that the United States’ largest employer cannot possibly be bad for the economy, Wal-Mart’s habit of dominating markets and use of less-than-honest labor and business practices has contributed to the steady decline of the traditional American small business. Wal-Mart’s conundrum with the economy is that it provides premium services and goods at a price well below that of any competitor. The size and scope of the company’s operations allows for them to put pressure on the companies that produce these goods. Wal-Mart often uses outsourced labor and imported goods as a means …show more content…
Wal-Mart removes this freedom and forces businesses to produce what they want and how much of it they want. There is no other choice. For example, Wal-Mart essentially held the Vlassic pickle company hostage over the one-gallon jar of pickles they wanted priced under three dollars. Wal-Mart refused to allow Vlassic any room on the deal, stating that if they wouldn’t produce it they would go somewhere else to get the product. Vlassic was forced to compromise the image of quality they had worked so hard to produce over the years and submit to Wal-Mart’s demands of a massive jar of pickles at a ridiculously low price. This type of behavior hurts the economy by forcing producers to compromise their profits and increase Wal-Mart’s. The rich get richer and the poor get …show more content…
If it doesn’t benefit them, then they’re not interested. In 2008 a Minnesota judge ruled that Wal-Mart had violated labor practices more than two million times by forcing workers to work off the clock without pay and not allowing them time for breaks. In 2000, Wal-Mart settled out of court with 69,000 workers in Colorado who also claimed they had been force to work off the clock. In 2005, they were forced to pay 172 million dollars to 116,000 California employees who had been denied a lunch break on shifts over six hours. In total, Wal-Mart has 53 class action lawsuits over wage and labor violations in the United States. This is not necessarily a massive impact on the economy because these workers aren’t paid a great sum of money, but a company that is willing to compromise the very thing that makes them able to operate in order to try to squeeze a little more profit out of their books is not the kind of place that I want operating in my America.
All-in-all, Wal-Mart does provide jobs. It does provide a place for the uneducated lower-middle class to work for a paycheck. It does bring unbelievably low prices to the end consumer for nearly every item in the store. But what it does not do is help the economy. If the only thing that matters to you in business is profit then you’re in it for the wrong reasons and hurting everyone else in the process. A business that doesn’t respect its workers