More jobs would be lost than created

Editor,

There have been a number of letter writers saying that the Super Wal-Mart would create many more jobs. With this marvelous thinking in mind that superstores create jobs, why stop at one? How about five more superstores creating 1,000 more jobs? Let us invite Target, Costco, Shopko, Home Depot, etc. to open stores here. Think of all the jobs they would "create."

There is a slight problem, however, there needs to be more customers to buy from the stores. Where do the Wal-Mart supporters think we cold get these additional customers?

Here is something to think about: After normal household expenses such as housing, taxes, utilities, etc., there is only so much discretionary money available for food, clothing, household supplies, etc. the addition of a superstore or a mall does not, repeat does not, increase the total amount of discretionary money. This is obvious. Therefore, if people buy at a new superstore or mall the established stores will suffer and jobs will be lost. It is that simple.

I cannot emphasize this too strongly. The economy of an area is helped by a venture that produces something, not by selling something.

One example to think about it the impact of Wal-Mart on the town of Donaldson, La. In the 10 years before Wal-Mart, there were 20 businesses failures. In the 10 years after Wal-Mart built there, there were 185 failures (from the TV program "60 Minutes"). This means there were 165 business failures attributable to Wal-Mart. How many people lost their employment because of Wal-Mart? 300? 400? 500?

Wall-Mart had hired about 200 people with many of them part-time. Now tell me, how many jobs were created by Wal-Mart? The downtown area in Donaldson had store after store vacant, boarded up, bulldozed, moved out. Unusual? No, the same scenarios happened in hundreds, if not thousands, of communities.

According to a study by the Residents for Responsible Growth of Lake Placid, N.Y., for every two jobs "created" by Wal-Mart at least three jobs are lost elsewhere. Numerous other studies give similar figures.

Now that the myth that Wal-Mart creates jobs has been destroyed, consider other ramifications of a Wal-Mart. According to the United Commercial Food Workers Union, Wal-Mart workers make an average of $3 an hour less than unionized supermarket workers. An employee hired in at $5.65 an hour at Wal-Mart has an income below the poverty level and is immediately eligible for food stamps and Medicaid.

On the basis of talks with a number of Wal-Mart employees, I estimate that 50 percent or more of Wal-Mart employees have wages below or near the poverty level and of those, many apply for government assistance. In a study by the University of California Institute for Industrial Relations, the average Wal-Mart worker requires $730 in taxpayer-funded health care and $1,222 in other forms of assistance such as food stamps and subsidized housing. For a 100-employee Wal-Mart, that comes out to $195,200 of taxpayer money supporting that store. If you buy at Wal-Mart, add on to the prices the extra costs you are paying by taxes.

Would those in favor of Wal-Mart please explain something to me? If a company takes $1 million a year out of a community and pays poverty-level wages, how can it possibly be a benefit to a community?

Stanley Petersen

Polson