Two new research papers challenge that view. Using creative new methods, they find that the costs Walmart imposes in the form of not only lower earnings but also higher unemployment in the wider community outweigh the savings it provides for shoppers. On net, they conclude, Walmart makes the places it operates in poorer than they would be if it had never shown up at all. Sometimes consumer prices are an incomplete, even misleading, signal of economic well-being.
Their conclusion: In the 10 years after a Walmart Supercenter opened in a given community, the average household in that community experienced a 6 percent decline in yearly income—equivalent to about $5,000 a year in 2024 dollars—compared with households that didn’t have a Walmart open near them. Low-income, young, and less-educated workers suffered the largest losses.
I’m curious if multiple Walmarts in the same area have a compounding effect. I have 3 within the same distance from my apartment; a regular one that’s the oldest one out here, a Neighborhood Market and a Supercenter.
I’ve also seen the Walmart I used to work at get shut down so they could build a Supercenter just 2 blocks away and I remember everyone I worked with acting like they were gonna keep their job and just move to the new store. They did not. Though I partially suspect that was mostly due to the fact that, that particular Walmart I worked at was the lowest rated Walmart in the state. Of course they wouldn’t keep the employees from it.
I remember reading somewhere that they are also doing this to get rid of employees that have long-running contracts with better salary and/or benefits than what new employees have to live with.