Wal-Mart: Made In America

Imagine having a little shop that expands to a multi-billion dollar business that outsells all other stores. The Walton's lived this very experience. It went from Arkansas in the 60's to everywhere in America now. Wal-Mart has also expanded to different places around the world. For a store, Wal-Mart has become a very controversial topic of conversation.

Wal-Mart has built its entire company around low prices, and they really do deliver just that. Wal-Mart has really been able to make a difference for not just poor families, but for everybody, especially with the economic recession that this country is in.

Wal-Mart has recently gotten a bad name because of the fact that its products are not made in America. People have also begun to wonder how Wal-Mart is able to get its pricing down so low. This primary reason for concern though is because Wal-Mart used to pride itself in selling items that were only "made in America".

As far as pricing goes, Wal-Mart tells their suppliers to shave prices off of the wholesale price of the goods. The suppliers, instead of shaving dollars off of their profits, cut their own costs by outsourcing production to other parts of the world. Wal-Mart isn't the only store that works this way; dollar stores work on the same principal.

There have also been allegations in the press claiming that Wal-Mart does not treat its employees very well. There are several complaints about the fact that they give limited benefits to their employees. They usually only pay minimum wage and full time employees get benefits while part time employees don't get any benefits. However, most of Wal-Mart's employees are part time and not allowed to work 40 hours a week anyway.

Wal-Mart is however, one of the biggest employers in the United States. They are providing economic support to a number of families, in both full time income and supplemental income. However, if someone does not like the job situation with Wal-Mart he or she is always welcome to quit.

Small towns do tend to suffer when big corporations move in. This means any corporation. Some francises are brought into the towns by people who actually live in the town. Wal-Mart, however, does not take employees from its other stores to bring to a new store. It employs people from the town; people who didn't have jobs before. In some places, Wal-Mart is helping to take the unemployed off of unemployment.

Wal-Mart isn't entirely bad. They do have lots of positive characteristics, including the job opportunities that they provide and the cheap prices that they supply to the people all over the world. So before you judge them, try to get all of the facts.

Dorthy Weatherbush shops at Wall Mart for many of her household needs. It's not the only place she shops but is on the list. Wal-Mart doesn't always have the lowest prices on everything though.