The Walmart Effect

Critical Response: The Wal-Mart Effect: Poison or Antidote For Local Communities

In The Wal-Mart effect: Poison or Antidote for Local Communities author Terry J. Fitzgerald attempts to submerge to the bottom of the issues people have with Wal-Mart. He does so by using results from Wal-Mart’s effect by entering non Wal-Mart counties economy’s. He uses the research to show that Wal-Mart doesn’t affect a community as much as most think. However, no matter what side of the issue you fall on, it still affects your community in a good or bad manner.

The article begins with the anti Wal-Mart factions basic arguments against Wal-Mart. It states that Wal-Mart destroys jobs and defecates a communities character. It also states that Wal-Mart uses illegal immigrants, requires off the clock labor from its employees and is too force exerting on stopping labor unions. It also goes on to name a few more negative opinions of Wal-Mart from the anti Wal-Mart group.

However, it also goes on to show good things Wal-Mart does for the community and environment. It shows that Wal-Mart has made many changes in their energy sources and are also giving them a pretty good deal of advertising and shelf space. It also shows that Wal-Mart has started selling various generic prescription drugs at a cost of only four dollars which makes it easily accessible for people with low income and those on social security. He has so far done an excellent job of showing no bias towards any side of the debate.

He starts the body of his research by reviewing some new and unaccompanied data. He takes forty countries that had a Wal-Mart come to their area and forty nine countries that didn’t have a Wal-Mart and compared there data over the course of about twenty years. He begins analyzing their data before Wal-Mart ever appeared and every thing was close to even except population and employment was higher in Wal-Mart countries . He then shows that over twenty years median income grew faster in Wal-Mart countries. The next graph he shows proves that in total compensation non Wal-Mart countries grew much faster.

The next thing he moves to its growth in businesses which surprisingly was highest in non Wal-Mart countries. He then decides to analyze the data over a two year period including the year before the Wal-Mart was opened at one year after. His findings were that Wal-Mart had nearly no impact on average personal income and population within the community. One of the negative findings about Wal-Mart was that its countries didn’t improve as much as Wal-Mart countries. However, he offered up that due to the increase in population there are more immigrants. He says that immigrants are more likely to be poor and that’s what caused that statistic to be negative.

After expressing all of his findings he offers up that his findings are defiantly not groundbreaking enough to silence the critics and be the last word. He also says that the statistics would probably be different in America. He does however say that many of the critics charges are very inconsistent. He concludes saying “ its probably safest to say that Wal-Mart’s net imprints on a countries health appears to be smaller than most perceive.”

I think he brought a very complex issue to the surface that needed