A few common misconceptions about Walmart

1. Tax revenue generated at the local level is not enough to support the increase is services required.

I don't see how this can be a Walmart problem. This seems like incompetant government planning at the local level.

2. The cost to individual states when many of Walmart's employees do not earn enough to make ends meet and thus the individual state incurs higher costs associated with providing healthcare (Medicaid) and other public
assistance.

Here's a link that basically discusses this problem in economics:
Public Goods and Externalities

This is something that is true for all companies that don't provide health insurance for their employees as one example. Many companies that provide benefits like health insurance to many of their employees and are highly profitable use "temporary" employees and these employees don't receive benefits. Again this seems to be a problem with government policy. I note the recent law enacted in Maryland that more or less singled out Walmart for paying more taxes due to this negative externality. This apparently is an attempt to "level the playing field" and it remains to be seen what effect this will have.

As an aside I wonder if this supports the argument for having national health insurance in that it would relieve U.S. companies of having to provide this benefit and thus U.S. companies would be more competitive in the world marketplace.

3. Impact on local communities

Again this seems like a failure of public policy more than an indictment of Walmart.

4. Low Wages Paid

Basically the skills required to work as an employee at a Walmart store are minimal for many of the jobs there.


My sense from the information provided in the link is that the complaints about Walmart are more or less about Walmart "gaming" the system (system being laws and public policy) to their advantage. This seems like a problem with the system rather than a problem with Walmart