8 Reasons We Should Fight to Keep Walmart Out of Our Major Cities

We've been beating the anti-Walmart drum here at the Poverty in America blog for a while now. Most recently, the fight has centered around keeping Walmart out of New York City, one of the latest targets of the retailer's urban expansion plan (along with Chicago and Washington, D.C.).

People often ask why fighting Walmart is such a big deal. After all, new businesses mean new jobs, right? And Walmart's jobs could be beneficial to struggling low-income residents, right?

Unfortunately, the reality is that Walmart spells nothing but bad news for America's major urban areas. Here are the top eight reasons why. (Many thanks to Wake-Up Walmart for the data.)

1. Walmart displaces better-paying retail jobs. According to a 2005 study, when Walmart enters a metropolitan area it kills similar retail jobs that pay 18% more. All told, average retail worker earnings in an area decrease by 0.5-0.8% (a small sounding but significant amount for just one company).

2. Walmart workers earn sub-poverty-level wages. The average Walmart employee makes $11.75 per hour, or a little less than $21,000 per year. That's 6% below the official federal poverty rate for a family of four -- an amount that is itself woefully insufficient to support a family.

3. The company can afford to pay more than that. If you suspect that Walmart makes enough profits to do better by its workers, your suspicions are correct. One report found that if Walmart could bump its minimum wage up to $10 per hour, its workers would earn thousands more dollars per year while only increasing the cost for consumers of the average shopping trip by 36¢. Also, Walmart CEO Mike Duke pulled in $12.2 million in 2008 -- an incredible 587 times more than his average full-time employee.

4. Walmart is deeply anti-union - and therefore anti-worker. This almost sounds like something out of a movie about a deranged corporate villain, but Walmart actually distributes something called "A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free" to its management team. The toolkit contains warning signs that workers might be organizing, including "frequent meetings at associates' homes" and "associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other." Associating with each other? Noooo! Workers who've been caught trying to organize for their rights have been fired (illegally), threatened and spied upon by the company.

5. Walmart is a deadbeat company that's subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Guess who pays for Walmart's failure to provide adequate wages and benefits? Us, the American taxpayers. As just one example of this, take health care. In 21 of 23 states where data is available, Walmart comes in number-one in the number of employees who are forced to rely on taxpayer-funded healthcare programs. At the same time, some 90 percent of Walmart distribution centers request (and receive) local and state government subsidies, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

6. The company also avoids paying its taxes. Walmart implements a number of well-documented tax-avoidance schemes, including a plan by which the company pays rent to itself and then deducts that rent from its taxable income. According to Walmart itself, the company skirted $2.95 billion (!) in taxes in 2009.

7. Walmart is sexist. Even beyond the gender wage gap that permeates the entire labor force, Walmart has a terrible record of gender discrimination. The company has been sued multiple times for systematically discriminating against its female employees. In 2001, the latest year for which data is available, female Walmart workers earned between 5 and 15 percent less than their male counterparts in the same job classification.

8. When Walmart leaves town, it makes sure its abandoned buildings remain. Businesses inevitably close, even in major cities with high demand. And Walmart's no exception, with roughly 9 closed stores in Dallas, 6 in Atlanta and 5 in the greater Chicago area. But leave it to Walmart to include a clause in many of its real estate deals that prevents other retailers from taking over its abandoned spaces, leaving empty stores and parking lots (which can attract crime and are definitely an eyesore) all over the country.

Convinced that Walmart brings nothing but regressive labor practices and urban blight to big cities? Tell New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that you don't want Walmart to open up in New York City, and you don't think he should either.

Photo credit: funnyboy73