{"id":102,"date":"2005-12-03T12:32:48","date_gmt":"2005-12-03T16:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/12\/03\/gauging-the-wal-mart-effect\/"},"modified":"2005-12-03T12:32:48","modified_gmt":"2005-12-03T16:32:48","slug":"gauging-the-wal-mart-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/12\/03\/gauging-the-wal-mart-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauging the Wal-Mart Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a145'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3, 2005, p. A9<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230; An independent study done last month by the National<br \/>\nBureau of Economic Research says Wal-Mart does adversely affect<br \/>\nemployment and wages. Retail workers in a community with Wal-Mart earn<br \/>\n3.5% less, the study says, because Wal-Mart&#8217;s low prices force other<br \/>\nbusinesses to lower prices, and hence their wages. Wal-Mart pays its<br \/>\nemployees on average about $9.68 an hour. NBER says it is possible that<br \/>\nlower wages, which result in decreased earnings, could result in a<br \/>\nstrain on the tax base if lower-paid workers must seek food stamps and<br \/>\nMedicaid. The study also found that Wal-Mart&#8217;s presence reduces retail<br \/>\nemployment by 2% to 4%, although there is some evidence that total<br \/>\nemployment increases.<\/p>\n<p>Wal-Mart counters with a study it funded from Global<br \/>\nInsight, an economic-forecasting firm. The study found that, since<br \/>\n1985, Wal-Mart&#8217;s openings around the country have cut consumer prices<br \/>\nabout 3%, saving consumers $263 billion in 2004 alone. While nominal<br \/>\nwages go down about 2% on average nationwide, the study says, prices go<br \/>\ndown even further, causing an increase in consumers&#8217; real disposable<br \/>\nincome&#8230;<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Retail<br \/>\nworkers earn 3.5% less, according to the first study. Even if they went<br \/>\ndown only 2%, are the workers supposed to be happy because they spend<br \/>\nall their money at cheap Wal-Mart stores? <\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3, 2005, p. A9 &#8230; An independent study done last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research says Wal-Mart does adversely affect employment and wages. Retail workers in a community with Wal-Mart earn 3.5% less, the study says, because Wal-Mart&#8217;s low prices force other businesses to lower prices, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-multinational-corporate-responsibility"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}