Wal-Mart doubling food-stamp usage?

Question

In the August edition of Discover Magazine, there was a very small blurb about Wal-Mart in the "This Just in..." section.
It said:

"Penn State agricultural economists find food-stamp usage doubles in countries with new Wal-Mart stores and blame low wages and the collapse of mom-and-pop local business networks."

What do you think? Are the "Always low prices" worth it?

MJ: That was the whole article. Rather short isn't it?

Oops yeah, counties. Sorry. I thought I put counties. Yay for dyslexia.

Answer 1

Most of the people answering are focusing on 'usage,' which is reasonable given the way the nib was written.

From what I've read on the issue, however, I'm not certain that's actually what it's talking about. The actual study talks about greater increases (or smaller decreases) in family poverty. Food stamp usage is just one marker for that.

The Penn State economists offer three possible causes for the correlation between number of Wal-Mart stores and increased family poverty. One is that as the jobs that Wal-Mart 'creates' are low wage and low and/or unreliable hours, the people working there often need food stamps to get them through.

It was noted long ago that one of the great ironies, and perhaps the real secret to their success, is that Wal-Mart's employment practices enlarge their own customer base.

Answer 2

I don't see the connection between Wal Mart, food stamps, and the collapse of "mom & pop" stores. Mom & Pop didn't take food stamps perhaps? Mom & Pop are now on food stamps? Where I live Wal Mart is very popular because of limited shopping (15,000 people in whole county, the three 'major' cities within a 50 mile radius have less than 15,000 people). Since most poor shop Wal Mart, I suppose that's the reason for more food stamps being used.

Answer 3

I think that may be part of it, but I think the main reason is that people can get more for their money (or stamps) at WalMart because of the lower prices. And now days, it's not just the mom & pop places that are closing. The bigger companies are closing as well. Two family members lost their jobs after nearly 30 years in a plant when they just up & shut down. That affected nearly 500 families in the area. That is far more worse than a couple of mom & pop stores.

Answer 4

Did you mean to say that food stamp usage doubles in "counties" with Wal-mart stores? I'm not aware of any other countries that use the food stamp program.

Well it would make sense wouldnt it? The government pays for full page ads in newspapers to encourage families to sign up for food stamp benefits...since the use of food stamps has been declining steadily for many years now. Wal-mart prices are low so they attract the lower income families to their stores. Lower income families that make use of the food stamps seek to get the most value for thier stamps. Besides....not many of the so called "mom & pop" stores accept those stamps.

Answer 5

Is this necessarily saying that it's WalMart employees that are reeping these benefits? Maybe it's because WalMart accepts food stamps that more receipients of these benefits are actaully using them as opposed to selling them for cash like a lot fot hem do.

Yup, that is short and really doesn't give enough information to determine what the cause of that is. In any case, I don't see why the government would encourage people to get welfare and food stamps, I've never seen an ad for these benefits. I would think that we encourage people to work so not to require government assistance in which our tax dollars are being spent on which is A LOT. If people would stop having a lot of kids and have both parents work then they wouldn't frikin need to get on welfare and maybe people that do work could get less taxes taken out. The way our society works sucks!

Answer 6

They do not use Union labor to build there stores.
I for one think that Wal-Mart is bad for America.
We use more food stamps in those locations while whole cities spring up in China.

Answer 7

Ummm...I got nothin