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    • gradual@lemmings.world
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      11 months ago

      Walmart employs members of the community. They bear some of the responsibility for why our community is so prosperous.

      If local stores care so much about the community, they can offer us better prices than the chains. Otherwise they’re just using “buy local” as an excuse to rip people off and enrich themselves.

      Edit: It’s sad how clueless you people are, but it reinforces why I don’t take the vast majority of you people seriously.

      Keep paying more while thinking you’re somehow getting a better deal.

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Walmart employs members of the community.

        Seriously? Sure they hire workers but they pay them so poorly that huge numbers of them qualify for food benefits from the government and medicaid. When you shop at Walmart, you pay them twice. Once at the register, and once in your payroll taxes which go to their employees. Meanwhile, the family that owns the company have a net worth of $432.4 BILLION dollars! Fuck Walmart and the companies like them!

        In 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), at the behest of Senator Bernie Sanders, studied who was using federal assistance programs and where they worked. The GAO found millions of full-time workers were stuck relying on federal medical and food programs to make ends meet.

        According to the office, 70 percent of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid users in their study were full-time workers, with 90 percent of them in the private sector. A significant number of them worked in restaurants and department or grocery stores.

        Surprise, surprise — Walmart ranked among the top four employers whose workers relied on Medicaid and SNAP. As Eli Rosenberg broke down in the Washington Post, in nine states alone, Walmart had 14,500 employees on SNAP and 10,350 on Medicaid. Other top offenders included McDonalds, Dollar Tree, Amazon, Burger King, and FedEx.

        Edit to add: Prosperous? When Walmart moves in locals suffer.

        A study published in 2008 in the Journal of Urban Economics examined about 3,000 Walmart store openings nationally and found that each store caused a net decline of about 150 jobs (as competing retailers downsized and closed) and lowered total wages paid to retail workers.

        The damage is long term too.

        A 2012 analysis conducted by Puget Sound Sage, a nonprofit public policy organization that looks at regional economic issues, found that each new Walmart store decreases a local community’s economic output over 20 years by an estimated $13 million. The research also discovered that each Walmart store costs the community an additional $14 million in lost wages over the next 20 years. Although the Puget Sound Sage study was conducted years ago, research continues to reveal how Walmart affects the economy when it comes to town. For example, Walmart’s lower wage offerings have contributed to a decline in average retail wages in communities where the company is located. This exacerbates income inequality and economic disparity in those areas.

        • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Not only does Walmart have an enormous number of employees on government assistance, they have training classes for their employees to help them apply.

          Also, a lot of the people they hire, are people who worked for, and even OWNED, small local businesses that they have run out of business. Same goes for ALL big box retailers like Lowes and Home Depot.

        • gradual@lemmings.world
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          11 months ago

          What makes you think a local grocery store will pay its employees more than walmart?

          • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            First, because in my personal experience, locally owned businesses pay and treat their employees better than corporate run places that focus only on profit for the owners and shareholders. Second, they couldn’t (legally) pay them less than Walmart does.

            • gradual@lemmings.world
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              11 months ago

              locally owned businesses pay and treat their employees better than corporate run places that focus only on profit for the owners and shareholders.

              From my experience, all businesses are trying to maximize profit by paying their employees the least they’re willing to accept. Local businesses don’t pay employees more nor do they ‘treat their employees better.’ It’s all business.

              Second, they couldn’t (legally) pay them less than Walmart does.

              Why not?

        • BBQuicktime@thelemmy.club
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          11 months ago

          It’s not too late to turn it around.

          Unfortunately, it is. It’s nice to think that everybody can do their part to bring back the locally-owned places and sense of community, but you’re not going to convince people living paycheck-to-paycheck who are going to always make a beeline for the cheapest prices. The only time a Wal-mart dies is when the town builds a bigger, new Wal-mart or the town itself dies altogether.

        • gradual@lemmings.world
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          11 months ago

          Yeah, typical useful idiot thinking it’s up to the customer instead of the business owners to foot the bill for these problems.

            • gradual@lemmings.world
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              11 months ago

              Yeah. The facts are clear.

              The fact is I wouldn’t have even moved here if there wasn’t a Walmart.

              The fact is, most useful idiots are proud to pay more while doing mental gymnastics to think they’re getting a better deal.

              The fact is, I genuinely don’t respect most of your financial advice because most of you people spend money like morons while complaining you need more.

              Gonna ignore you now because this isn’t up for debate.

        • gradual@lemmings.world
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          11 months ago

          If local stores care so much about the community, they can offer us better prices than the chains.

          Way to completely ignore the argument.