Poor Sam
A Walmart study bites the hand that fed it

In an attempt to improve its image, Walmart sponsored an academic conference about its impact on the economy and local communities. The store even had the nerve to hire an independent consultant to manage the selection of papers. It was not a good investment for the company, as pointed out in an article in the LA Times this morning.

Some of their findings, which a few of the researchers released before the conference, tend to confirm what Wal-Mart critics have been saying for years.

At least two concluded that Wal-Mart stores' pay practices depressed wages beyond the retail sector. Another found that states on average spent $898 for each Wal-Mart worker in Medicaid expenses.

One study concluded that Wal-Mart's giant grocery and general merchandise Super- centers brought little net gain for local communities in property taxes, sales taxes and employment; instead, the stores merely siphoned sales from existing businesses in the area.

Not all the news was bad for Wal-Mart. Several of the studies noted that its stores led to lower prices throughout a region. Two suggested that Wal-Mart increased a county's total employment, with one pegging that long-term gain at 1% to 2%.