this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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Summary

Two studies reveal that Walmart’s entry into communities lowers household incomes by 6% over 10 years and increases poverty by 8%, even when accounting for cost savings.

Its practices, such as undercutting competitors, suppressing wages, and squeezing suppliers, harm local economies by reducing employment and forcing smaller businesses to close.

Walmart’s “monopsony power” enables it to pay lower wages and dominate suppliers, compounding these effects.

The findings challenge the idea that low prices alone benefit communities, emphasizing long-term economic harm.

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Non-paywall link

(page 2) 30 comments
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[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Walmart encourages their employees to apply for federal and state programs like food stamps because they don't give their employees enough hours and give them weird shifts making it hard to even have another job.

And then they want them to use them at Walmart.

It's disgusting.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 days ago (5 children)

This was proven decades ago.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I was buying camping equipment from walmart. They were out of some of my supplies and a new tent I wanted. I ordered alternative items from a online store and they were so much higher quality than the ones at walmart. Walmart squeezes its suppliers so much you end up with items that are more cheaply made. I've tested this on several different items and have discovered that walmart sources many of their brands straight from china. You can buy the same cheap shit from temu.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Theres literally documentaries from 2010 about manufacturers who make a "Walmart version" because Walmart demands these factories make them at a specific price.

Like in one documentary, the same toaster from Target and Walmart, the Walmart one had different cheaper parts inside. TVs, furniture, lamps. Even the plastic storage containers like totes and Tupperware had "Walmart" versions that were real flimsy.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They also do this with Black Friday electronics now too.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Snapper Mowers actually pulled from Walmart in 2006 because they wanted to focus high quality products rather then moving quantity.

Selling Snapper lawn mowers at Wal-Mart wasn’t just incompatible with Snapper’s future – Wier thought it was hazardous to Snapper’s health. Snapper is known in the outdoor-equipment business not for huge volume but for quality, reliability, durability. A well-maintained Snapper lawn mower will last decades; many customers buy the mowers as adults because their fathers used them when they were kids. But Snapper lawn mowers are not cheap, any more than a Viking range is cheap. The value isn’t in the price, it’s in the performance and the longevity.

Later in 2013, Briggs & Stratton decided to start selling Snapper in Walmarts again. 2014, Briggs & Stratton closed a Snapper plant. They then had to restructure and other corporate BS, so fuck around and find out. Publicly traded company garbage.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

That's why you operate multiple brands. You've got your Walmart brand and your decent brand and your overpriced luxury brand all pumped out of the same overseas factory

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (7 children)

Low prices AND low value. The cheap ass shit they sell is intended to break and be replaced as quickly as possible. E.g. cheap clothes that wear out quickly. Those who can't afford better are thus trapped in a cycle of repeat buying.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

Indeed. And worse, wealthy get a discount on everything - an obvious example being that f you have lots of money you don't need to get a car loan or even a mortgage. More likely you are the one, indirectly, making the loans and earning interest for the huge effort you expended being wealthy.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

Isn't this obvious?

If an outside Corp comes in displacing local business, the profits that would cycle back into that community now get taken out. It doesn't matter what the prices are, when the community as a whole has less money with each transaction.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I'm not sure it has been empirically proven.

Hypotheses that make sense at face value are dime a dozen in economics. Some of Milton Friedman's hypotheses on inflation made sense but were proven wrong. Nevertheless they were used for decades to drive policy with horrible impact on the working class. Lots of people still believe they're true, because they make sense at face value.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (3 children)

The “velocity of money” has been very much proven. You take money out of a community, you deny it to that community. That’s why the existence of the wealthy is the presence of a parasite.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I can see their sharp vampiric teeth in their big W.

Communities greatly adapt to these big stores, and when they leave, there's only a vacuum left.

You can see articles about that dating back to at least 2014 (that's from 2018): https://www.nprillinois.org/illinois-economy/2018-12-13/when-walmart-leaves-town

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago

Makes sense. Take 10 small businesses with a owner/manager and say 5 employees. 50 employees. Local convenience store, small grocer, whatever. Not all at min wage, the owner/manager are going to be making a bit more. WalMart rolls in, kills those businesses, now you have four overworked managers managing 40 overworked employees at bottom dollar wages. The other 16 had to go find something else or get welfare services or whatver.

A very simplified version, but I could see how this brings down wages.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It should be illegal to pay people wages that require them to take public assistance

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 days ago

Don't worry, they will fix the issue by eliminating piblic assistance

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[–] [email protected] 138 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Hard to start a business when your competitor is Walmart.

Hard to make a living when the main employer is Walmart.

Hard to move when you don't have any money.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Hard to start a business when your competitor is Walmart.

It's also hard to maintain an existing business when your competitor is WalMart.

They can afford to undercut you until you go out of business, then they can charge whatever the market will bear.

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[–] [email protected] 117 points 6 days ago (2 children)

No fucking shit.

This was news in like 1990.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago

Ya, I remember it being mentioned when I worked for them about 25 years ago. Unfortunately I cannot find any articles. All local news at the time, probably. Towns that had citizens who banded together and successfully combatted Walmart moving in, etc.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 days ago

Unfortunately dipshits will still argue about it to this day

[–] [email protected] 76 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

Wastes vasts amounts of urban land on parking instead of housing or more businesses

Is often so deep in parking lots and strip malls its impossible to walk to

Cheap prices and cheap chinese manufacturing to help eliminate local competition

Massive corporation has more bulk buying power than local competition

Designed to be a one stop shop, fix your car, buy a tv and grab some food

Self checkouts pays robots instead of people in the community the store is in

The people who do work there are paid shit wages for life, often not even keeping up with inflation meaning they actually get paid less every year

Probably paying less taxes than they should be for the amount of space the business takes up and the amount of traffic generated

Helps promote car centric design which is a terribly ineffecient and expensive way to move people within an urban area.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago

More than half of Walmart's employees are on food stamps or some other form of government assistance. So along with everything else, our tax money goes to pay their employees because they won't.

I call that a tax break, paying shit wages, AND ruining the local area by making everybody more poor all rolled into one because Walmart employees often shop at Walmart for their employee discount (because they can't afford to shop elsewhere on their poor wages), meaning that their wages go right back into the company's coffers right alongside our tax dollars.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 days ago

All profits are exported out of the community, instead of staying/swirling about the community.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I agree with all points. I just wonder how much the robots get paid.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

I guess technically they pay the company that designed the self checkouts then pay their upkeep in electricity and maintaince. But just you wait for the AI self check outs. It will become self aware and start taking a cut for itself to buy memecoins.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Sounds like a national security threat. More directly threatening on a daily basis than many other things they claim are threats.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

More threatening than Luigi?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

Companies failing to properly protect the foodchain have killed hundreds. But you don't see any CEOs in chains.

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