WalMart Store Closures Leave Elderly Villagers With No Grocery Stores, Pharmacies

Posted January 25, 2016 7:08 pm by PatriotRising

We wonder if perhaps the retailer has entered a terminal decline similar to what befell that other “Mart”

walmart01

Last week, WalMart doubled down on the wage hike debacle when the world’s largest retailer decided to give everyone a raise in February.

 

The all-in cost will be around $2.7 billion. While some were surprised at the move, it was easy to see coming. Indeed, we’ve long said that the company’s decision to hike wages for its lowest-paid employees would eventually necessitate similar raises for workers higher up the corporate ladder.

“The wage hierarchy has been distorted and that distortion had nothing to do with merit,” we wrote, back in August. “Higher paid employees don’t understand why everyone under them in the corporate structure suddenly makes more money and if people who are higher up on the corporate ladder don’t receive raises that keep the wage hierarchy proportional, they may simply quit which means that, for Wal-Mart, raising the minimum for the lowest paid workers to just $9/hour will end up costing the company around $1.5 billion if you include the additional raises the company will have to give to higher paid employees in order to retain their ‘talents’ and avoid a mid-level management mutiny.”

Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened – only the cost is far higher than even we anticipated.

The problem is that when your business model revolves around “everyday low prices,” each and every additional penny you give to your employees is a penny that’s not passed on to customers as savings. That’s a problem, given how competitive the discount retail space has become. On top of that, margins are already razor thin and pinching them further has a dramatic impact on profitability as evidenced by theshocking guidance cut WalMart delivered in October.

Initially, the company sought to make up for the money “lost” to the wage hike by squeezing the supply chain. When efforts to extract more savings from vendors weren’t sufficient, WalMart simply fired some folks, first at the home office in Bentonville and then at 269 stores where 16,000 employees learned this month that they no longer have a job.

But the employees at the shuttered stores aren’t the only ones affected by the decision to close hundreds of locations. Also out in the cold are local customers who in some cases will now be forced to effectively commute to the grocery store and pharmacy as the family-owned businesses which used to serve small communities were put out of business when WalMart came to town.

“Though mom-and-pop stores have steadily disappeared across the American landscape over the past three decades as the mega chain methodically expanded, there was at least always a Wal-Mart left behind to replace them,” Bloomberg writes. “Now the Wal-Marts are disappearing, too.”

Bloomberg tells the story of The Town’n Country grocery in Oriental, North Carolina which was “a local fixture” for nearly half a century – until WalMart showed up.

The Town’n Country closed last October after sales collapsed by a third. “They ruined our lives,” Renee Ireland Smith, who ran Town’n Country said. “They came in here with their experiment and ruined us,” she laments, referencing WalMart’s foray into smaller stores called “WalMart Express.” Here’s more:

“I was devastated when I found out. We had a pharmacy and a perfectly satisfactory grocery store. Maybe Wal-Mart sold apples for a nickel less,” said Barb Venturi, mayor pro tem for Oriental, with a population of about 900. “If you take into account what no longer having a grocery store does to property values here, it is a significant impact for us.”

Oriental is hardly alone. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Jan. 15 it would be closing all 102 of its smaller Express stores, many in isolated towns, to focus on its supercenters and mid-sized Neighborhood Markets. 

That’s a big problem for small towns, often with proportionately large elderly populations. For the older folks of Oriental — a retirement and summer vacation town along the inter-coastal waterway — the next-nearest grocery and pharmacy is a 50-minute round-trip drive.

Towns like Clearwater, Kansas, and Merkel, Texas, are among those hit by Wal-Mart closures. In Godley, Texas, with a population of roughly 1,000, Wal-Mart opened a small store just a year ago. Within months, the only other grocery store in town — Brookshire Brothers, part of an employee-owned regional chain — shut its doors. Now with Wal-Mart gone, the closest full-service grocery store is about a 20-minute drive away.

This is just one more example of why improving the quality of life for poorly paid hourly employees isn’t as simple as implementing across-the-board wage hikes.

WalMart’s move to give employees $10/hour instead of $9 has now, i) adversely affected the supply chain and might well end up driving some vendors out of business as the retailer pushes for more savings, ii) cost the jobs of hundreds who were gainfully employed in Bentonville, meaning the economy lost breadwinner jobs so the company’s meagerly compensated shelf stockers could be slightly less poor, iii) irreparably damaged WalMart’s reputation with investors, and now iv) left many a community across the country with no grocery store and no pharmacy.

We’re pretty sure this wasn’t what WalMart had in mind when they first announced that the company was prepared to appease the living wage crowd early last year, but now that the horse has left the barn, we wonder if perhaps the retailer has entered a terminal decline similar to what befell that other “Mart”…

http://patriotrising.com/2016/01/25/walmart-store-closures-leave-el...

Views: 53

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

Comment by Anti Everything on January 26, 2016 at 6:12am

They took over the our world and now there leaving town. They bankrupted the heart of our towns with 'the high cost of low prices'. The same will happen when Lowes, Home Depot shut down. The idea was a disaster from its birth. That said, now we have to grow, raise and produce again for ourselves, our neighbors our communities - and that is a good thing.

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

Doc Vega posted a blog post

Three Must See Movies for Halloween

Grab Your Popcorn and Settle In!  If you really want to get in the mood for Halloween and you like…See More
11 hours ago
Bob of the Family Renner posted photos
14 hours ago
Doc Vega posted a blog post

Terror on All Hallows Eve

Chapter IElizabeth was angry. All of her friends were going to be out on Halloween, but her. She…See More
yesterday
Jeff favorited Jeff's profile
Monday
Jeff favorited Jeff's profile
Monday
Jeff favorited Doc Vega's profile
Monday
Jeff is now a member of 12160 Social Network
Sunday
Doc Vega posted blog posts
Friday
tjdavis posted a video

How Corporations Are Secretly Poisoning Our Food Supply

Dupont and 3M have been secretly poisoning America for decades. PFAs — also known as forever chemicals—are now in our food, water, clothes, and our blood. Th...
Friday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

They Won’t Stop

 The demonically driven left will not stop. Makes no difference how much violence they call for or…See More
Oct 22
Doc Vega posted a blog post

What US Scientist unwittingly helped the Nazis devise the V-2 Missile?

  In the early 1920’s and leading up to World War II German technology outpaces the peace time…See More
Oct 20
tjdavis favorited Sandy's video
Oct 19
tjdavis posted a photo
Oct 19
Christopher Walker is now a member of 12160 Social Network
Oct 19
tjdavis posted videos
Oct 19
Burbia commented on tjdavis's photo
Thumbnail

Reflection

"Let's see if this goes past indictment."
Oct 18
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Something Watches From Out there in the Wilderness
"cheeki kea That's very interesting history. So many things about history that go ignored or…"
Oct 18
Burbia commented on Burbia's video
Oct 18
Burbia posted a video

Programmed To Kill/Satanic Cover-Up Part 433 (The Charlie Kirk Conspiracy Show)

https://www.programmedtokill.net/projects---- DISCLAIMER! ----Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair u...
Oct 18
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's photo
Thumbnail

American werewolf- 2018

"Yip I've looked again and this is what the creature looks like, even has stripes just like…"
Oct 18

© 2025   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted