Introduction
In our daily lives, people use things that they can’t live without, aside from shelter, they need food and clothing to survive their day-to-day tasks. Practically, they tend to buy those things from retail stores that provide better prices than the other. Wal-Mart is one of the most patronized if not the leading retail store in the United States. They sell thousands of different product types that a person can imagine. There has been a question about Wal-Mart as whether or not the company is good for America. There are opposing viewpoints that argue and determine its goodness or otherwise for the country. On one hand, we argue that Wal-Mart provides affordable products that help Americans save more. On the other hand, there are some issues that made other people think if this company is really helpful or not as there has been some reports of inequality towards its employees.
Wal-Mart - Good or Bad for America
Wal-Mart is the history’s largest retailer. Based on its website they have more than 8,000 stores that are fully operating, the company has 2.1 million people and they sell over $400 billion worth of products each year. Since it is a very big company, it has the capability to provide services to their customers, which their competitors can’t. That is also one of the reasons why Wal-Mart become an important part of American economy (wupr.org). In addition, the company is very efficient in every business stage that they operate.
Tom Van Riper (2008) of nbcnews.com wrote an answer about why Wal-Mart may just be good for the U.S. He asserts that with all the critics, there is a new study showing that Wal-Mart is giving benefits than harm to American economy. Minneapolis’ Federal Reserve Bank was the one who released the findings concluding that the biggest retail store is providing more benefits as a result of a 20-year study for 89 countries. In an obvious reason, Wal-Mart is being patronage by more people as they provide affordable goods that benefits everyone. Practically speaking, this model gives more choices to their customers and as a result, people will choose them rather than getting the same product from other retailers for a higher price (Riper, 2008).
However, with all those benefits that it provides to its customers, negative accusations were brought up against the company. Erin Johansson (2005) asserts that the retail giant is paying its employees, far less than the average hourly rate. Additionally, he claims that only 45 percent of the company’s employees have health coverage plan. When it comes to the industry, Wal-Mart is killing its smaller competitors as it has almost everything that buyers look for.
Conclusion
It has been proved that Wal-Mart is not providing a total good for the Americans. However, it is not safe to conclude that Wal-Mart is generally bad for Americans. We believe that many Americans are gaining benefits from this largest retail company as it helps people save a lot especially for frequent shoppers. As opposed to the benefits, there are also many people who may have no choice but to work with Wal-Mart, despite the unfair treatment that they get from the company. This company may be bad for America in some points, but good on the other. But in reality, it is not just Wal-Mart, who has the same reputation, so, to answer the question about whether or not this company is bad for America, we can say that it is not bad for people who gain benefit from it, but it is not good for workers who forcibly chose to work for them because of unfair treatment and not good for its competitors who cannot provide the same services that Wal-Mart can give to its customers.
References
Johansson, E. (2005, November). Wal-Mart: Rolling Back Workers' Wages, Rights and the American Dream. Retrieved September 21, 2013, from http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/dmdocuments/ARAWReports/WalmartReport_lowres.pdf
Riper, T. V. (2008, January 17). Why Wal-Mart may just be good for the U.S. - Business - Forbes.com | NBC News. Retrieved September 21, 2013, from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/22719054/ns/business-forbes_com/t/why-wal-mart-may-just-be-good-us/#.Uj2IBVOaRdg
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (n.d.). Welcome to Walmart Careers. Retrieved September 21, 2013, from http://careers.walmart.com/
Washington University (2009, November 21). Why Walmart is Good for America | WUPR. Retrieved 21, 2013, from http://www.wupr.org/2009/11/21/why-walmart-is-good-for-america/
