Walmart Hurts America - Research Report

[billythekid]

Always love prices – Always, this is the famous slogan Wal-Mart incorporated has used for years, advertising low prices in hopes of attracting customers to it’s store, instead of it’s competitors, but when do low cost goods combined with low pay cross the line. Does saving money help or hurt America? Wal-Mart’s low prices bring with them low wages and low morals - Always
Twenty Two Million Dollars – that’s the amount of money the government paid Wal-Mart stores incorporated to open a distribution center in Arcadia, FL (Mattera, Purinton) that sounds like a LOT of money, but its nothing compared to the 44 million the government paid Wal-Mart stores to open distribution centers in Olney, IL and Sharon Springs, NY. You see, Wal-Mart stores, now the largest company operating in the United States, has manipulated the business world to get anything they want. What is more surprising, and shameful, is that even though Wal-Mart is making just short of a billion dollars a day, it only managers to find nine dollars an hour or less for most of its "associates".
Wal-Mart’s low pay has put many of its employees in a position to receive money from the government to supplement the low wages Wal-Mart has forced on them. Wal-Mart’s everyday low prices may not leave a smile on your face, especially if you are a local business owner or employee.
Founded in 1962 by Mr. Sam Walton, Wal-Mart stores quickly became the trendy store of the century. His stores offered to bring consumers the finest “made in America” merchandise at everyday low prices. These “everyday low prices” have brought the chain 100 million customers…..a week. However, Walton was not a happy man to work for, in 1992 he even wrote in his autobiography, Made in America “No matter how you slice it in the retail business, payroll is one of the most important parts of overhead, and overhead is one of the most crucial things you have to fight to maintain your profit margin."
Walton abused his employees by working them to death, refusing to hire any more persons than necessary, another dread of his, paying them. Walton was so cheap he even charged for a cup of coffee at work. Wal-Mart stores now-a-days are no different. The retail giant lacks behind in payroll over 20% compared to other retail giants Target, Costco, and Sears and Kmart, which when all four chains combined is still only 50% the size of Wal-Mart.
According to Paul Blank, the average two-person family (one parent and one child) needed $27,948 to meet basic needs in 2005, well above what Wal-Mart reports that its average full-time associate earns. Wal-Mart claimed that its average associate earned $9.68 an hour in 2005. That would make the average associate's annual wages $17,114. Did you know that Wal-Mart could cover the cost of a dollar an hour wage increase by raising prices a half penny per dollar. For instance, a $2.00 pack of soda would then cost $2.01. This minimal increase would annually add up to $1,800 for each employee. Ready for the kicker? This chart supplied by Paul Blank will disgust you, this is what your tax dollars are going towards
The estimated total amount of federal assistance for which Wal-Mart employees were eligible in 2004 was $2.5 billion. (The Hidden Price We All Pay For Wal-Mart, a Report by the Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, 2/16/04)
One 200-employee Wal-Mart store may cost federal taxpayers $420,750 per year. This cost comes from the following, on average:
$36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
$42,000 a year for low-income housing assistance.
$125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families.
$100,000 a year for the additional expenses for programs for students.
$108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance programs (S-CHIP)
$9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance.



Working off the clock, it sounds stupid, but its something Wal-Mart has put its employees through many times, as one manager told the New York Times, “You got to hit the payroll budget they set for you, but if you're over, they discipline you." Plausible deniability, then, becomes essential. Workers are assigned more work than they can possibly complete on their shifts -- while being warned that overtime is out of the question. No intelligent employee would fail to get the message: Finish the job by whatever means necessary. "We worked off the clock pretty much every shift," one employee told the Times. "The manager said if our jobs were not finished, we had to clock out and finish our jobs so no overtime would show up”.
You would think with awful business practices like the one above the employees would form together to make changes in their work environment right? Once again no, several stores have tried in the past to form unions, however each stores with the exception of two failed, the two that succeeded were closed almost immediately after. Adam Geller writes:
“Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it will close one of its Canadian stores, just as some 200 workers at the location are near winning the first-ever union contract from the world's largest retailer. Wal-Mart said it was shuttering the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, in response to unreasonable demands from union negotiators that would make it impossible for the store to sustain itself. (Geller, Adam)
Ok, so the employees are treated badly, how does that affect me? Why is Wal-Mart bad for America? Picture this, you just opened up a clothing shop in an average size town. You have a nice steady stream of income, your $40 Levi jeans are selling like a dream so well in fact, you have to employ more personnel, well suddenly, a Wal-Mart store opens up, and they sell a knock off pair of the same jeans for $15. What happens to your store now? Sales drop steadily until they are non-existent, you have to lay off staff until you finally realize it’s time to go out of business. All of this because the retail giant has a monopoly over you, using their size as an ability to buy and sell items in bulk at a lower price. Now imagine, if it happened to your store what is keeping it from happening to thousands of others, after all Wal-Mart is expanding to all areas of the United States and beyond.
Discrimination – that is another problem in the Wal-Mart system according to one author T.A. Frank, Wal-Mart faced a lawsuit of discrimination by a lady working at a Wal-Mart store in California. That case now involves nearly two million women, and, in 2004, it was certified by Judge Martin J. Jenkins, of the United States District Court in San Francisco as a class action. Women make up roughly 79 percent of Wal-Mart store's department heads (an hourly position), however only 15.5 percent are store managers. The judge replied to the case saying: “Plaintiffs present largely uncontested descriptive statistics which show that women working at Wal-Mart stores are paid less than men in every region, that pay disparities exist in most job categories, that the salary gap widens over time, that women take longer to enter management positions, and that the higher one looks in the organization the lower the percentage of women." (Frank, T.A.)
OK, it is clear that working for Wal-Mart is far from enjoyable, but at least its a little money right? Not if you are a legal citizen, you see on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2003 the Federal Beau of investigators busted Wal-Mart incorporated for employing more than 300 illegal immigrants in its store cleaning division. The arrests were very shocking seeing as employers are required to check forms known as I-9's, an employer can face civil and criminal penalties if they knowingly hire illegal immigrants or do not comply with the I-9 regulations. (Associated Press).
In March 2005, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $11 million to settle federal allegations it used undocumented immigrants to clean its stores. This was the largest immigration related fine ever levied.
Proud to be an American – Unless your Wal-Mart that is. Wal-Mart imports nearly 80% of its merchandise from overseas, specifically China. Did you know of all the exports into the United States, Wal-Mart imports over 10% of the total? Ok remember your Levi jeans? Well guess what? Wal-Mart now caries them, in fact Wal-Mart’s demand for Levi jeans has caused the company to nearly fall apart. The once famous jeans are forced to create, market, and profit on a $23 pair of jeans; in fact, Levi announced early this year that they would be closing their last two plants in America, a company that once held 60 plants in the USA(Charles Fishman, senior writer Fast Company).
Can you survive on $14,000 a year or less? If so then Wal-Mart is the place for you, if not, then you might want to protect the local businesses around you by not shopping at Wal-Mart. While the commercial super-giant seems like a great all in one place to shop (even though its customer service leaves much to be desired), it could be your future job, your child’s job or your best friends. While you are shopping at Wal-Mart to save a nickel on mayonnaise someone in China is laughing his or her head off at you. Wal-Mart – everyday low prices, hurting America one purchase at a time.

Resources

“Associated Press”23 October 2003
24 April 2007 <http://www.newsmax.com>.

Blank, Paul. “Wake Up Wal-Mart”
23 April 2007<www.wakeupwalmart.com>.

Fishman, Charles. “Wal-Mart” Fast Company. December 2003 Page 63

Frank, T.A. “A Brief History of Wal-Mart” 2006 Washington Monthly
26 April 2007<http://reclaimdemocracy.org>.

Geller, Adam. “As Union Nears Win, Wal-Mart Closes Store”10 February 2005
25 April 2007<http://www.commondreams.org>.

Mattera, Philip. Purinton, Anna. “Shopping for Subsidies” May 2004
25 April 2007 <http://www.goodjobsfirst.org>.

Walton, Sam. Made in America English 1993. Bantam.

[mshopper]

Billy,
While your thoughts seem well-organized and you make some good points, you really shouldn't turn this paper in as it is...you have an incredible amount of punctuation errors that you really need to fix. Also, there are a few spelling mistakes.

HTH

[Liz]

You're off to running start. Is this a formal research paper? If so, I'll give you a couple pointers that will really help you polish this baby off. I really wouldn't turn this in as-is.

I agree with mshopper, there are a large number of grammer and punctuation errors. Your tone is way too informal for a assigned research paper. Sentences should never start with "Ok" (which is not the proper use of this word, it is the abbreviated informal version), or end with "right?" Ending with "right?" makes it seems as if you are not sure of yourself and are seeking validation from your audience. Avoid posing questions, as it makes it seem that you are trying to dialogue and not inform (which is your objective in research). Phrases like "Ready for the kicker?" (which is not a proper sentence as well) and "Now guess what?", in addition to words like "now-a-days" do not belong in a research paper. You're interjecting your own opinions (You want to show your point of view backed up by concrete evidence, not try to appeal to the reader's emotional side 99% of the paper. Emotional appeals really do not belong in research papers--they're better left to philosophy and English/literature.), which is not what you want to do.

I'm not sure what your teacher/professor required, but your sources are weak. I know this is the information age, and even I'm not sure what a book is or even where the library is on campus (kidding, I know what books are, I pay too much for them for my classes!), but a lot of internet sources is what you want to avoid. Especially when you have only 8 sources listed, and only 2 of those are non-web based, it makes it look as if you haven't spent enough time doing your research. There are some topics in which the research is so new (or unique) that the internet is the most valuable tool, but the effect of WalMart on the economy and social class is a topic that has been pondered quite a bit for years, and there are many officially published sources. Bonus points if you can take a source related to your topic and tie it in. For example, if you find a published journal article in which the author researched the effects of worker pay on productivity, and tie it into your paper saying that by paying employees a low salary, there is lower morale and less efficiency thus cutting into the profits of the corporation; further, the study shows that by raising pay by $XX amount boosts productivity and thus the bottom line for the company. So, state that, and compare it to a similar corporation/store that has a higher wage thus more productivity, etc.

If you are going to put in an example, it is best not to make one up. The Levi jeans story may be true, but making something up does not belong in a research paper. A better example would be searching for a particular situation in which this already occurred (and if you Google it, you will find many).

Also, when you copy someone else's chart/research (cost to federal taxpayers), and it ends up taking up a fifth of your paper's length, it looks like you're padding it. In other words, you either slacked/fell asleep and are trying to get to the required page numbers in the quickest/easiest way possible, that you didn't want to bother further. If you had copied that chart into say, a 8 page double spaced 12pt font 1 inch margin paper, it wouldn't look like fluff, but in your paper it does. But in this instance, you unfortunately do not have enough evidence to back up your claims. Sure, many of them are true. But that doesn't mean they'll stand up to the scrutiny that will be coming to your paper.

I'm glad to see you named your sources. However, it is never a good idea to quote an entire sentence. It makes it seem as if you either didn't read it (to save time or whatnot), or didn't understand yoru source. Neither are good!! It is advised only to quote a few words that you cannot rephrase; I believe in my high school (I'm currently a college senior, going into my "second year" seniorship but took off a year and a half in the middle of my education... went directly to a great and well-respected university from a nationally ranked high school, so I'm not far out of high school) 5 words was the maximum, 7 was pushing it if you absolutely couldn't pare it down. Almost 3 lines of your paper is way too long.

Having had the conversation about the evils of WalMart a million times over, here are a couple good situations that would support your claims. If you run a Google search, you'll find a wealth of information. (1)WalMart vs the state of Maryland, in which the state passed legislation in regards to the company's spending on healthcare (Washington Post is a great, reliable source for this) (2)How successful Costco is in its business model and its corporate responsibility, and why it has a much more positive public image than WalMart (3)How much money the Walton family has, in relation to their corporate and private giving (4)the man who said no to WalMart, the Snapper lawnmower company (5)the poor environmental record of WalMart, and how their low prices teamed up with poor product quality are leading extreme mindless consumerism (and damaging the heck out of the environment) (i.e. why buy an expensive DVD player at $40 when I can buy a cheap one for $20 at WalMart--even though the $40 one will last 5 years and the $20 one less than a year--heck if the cheap one breaks I can keep buying more; the Snapper story provides an example of this)

There is a wealth of information out there. Go find it :)

[JayJay]

Wow, I totally agree, Liz. :)

OP, I thought you mentioned in your other post that your paper had to be 10 pages long? This looks like it's 3 pages, at most.

[MrsPinecone]

The pp have given excellent advice. As an English teacher, I would probably hand this right back to you if you turned it in like that.

Come up with some more concrete sources than a few websites. There are numerous newspaper and magazine articles in addition to the books that have been written on this subject.

Get rid of all of the run-on sentences.

Fix the punctuation mistakes.

Use a consistent tense.

Use a font size of no more than 12 points-- big and bold makes it look like you are trying to make it look longer than it is. Which is exactly what you are doing.

Don't use words like "busted" in a formal paper.

Correct the FIRST SENTENCE, which should say "Always low prices". A blatant error is a bad way to start a paper.

And your = belonging to you. You're = you are.

[FantasyIsland]

Following closely behind the misuse of your instead of you're is it's in place of its. It's is a contraction while its is possessive.

[billig]

Following closely behind the misuse of your instead of you're is it's in place of its. It's is a contraction while its is possessive.

Is is is?

lol

Is you is or is you ain't my baby?