Local businesses can’t compete with Wal-Mart’s low labor costs.  To operate like the Wal-Mart “model”, local retailers will have to eliminate reliable and long-time employees, and reduce or eliminate health care benefits, to cut labor costs.

Local businesses can’t compete with the Wal-Mart myth of low prices.  Wal-Mart’s unlimited advertising resources tout low prices to bring in customers and convince them they’re getting a good deal.

A Wal-Mart promises a gain in sales tax revenues – which cities depend on – but any Wal-Mart increase may be OFFSET by a LOSS in sales tax revenues FROM OUR EXISTING LOCAL RETAILERS.

Wal-Mart changes the shopping behaviors of a community.  When Wal-Mart opened in Oxnard, the Esplanade Mall closed and the major retailers all moved to Ventura.  What did we lose to the Pacific View Mall?  What would our community lose?

Wal-Mart WILL hurt our community –

Wal-Mart has absolutely no stake in our local community or our local economy.  In fact, the negative impacts are far more expensive than their so called “savings”.

Wal-Mart erodes a community’s middle-class living standard by creating unemployment and under-employment (part-time and low-paying jobs).  Three decent jobs are eliminated for every two Wal-Mart jobs created.  The Orange County Business Council estimates a $9 an hour difference between supermarket workers and Wal-Mart workers.

Schools, churches, and other organizations lose vital participation when local families are wrestling with unemployment or Wal-Mart and big box type of under-employment.

The blight of empty stores and the loss of historical buildings can accelerate in a community when a Wal-Mart displaces small local retailers and businesses.  The San Diego Tax Payers’ Association estimated that for each large discount retailer that moves in, 2 or 3 local retailers or small businesses go out of business.

Wal-Mart costs a city in public services.   The Orange County Business Council cautions that a Wal-Mart can bring additional expense in the provision of sewage, road maintenance, water, and electricity, etc.  These costs may outweigh any net gains in sales tax revenue.

Commuter traffic increases, when Wal-Mart’s low-wage workers cannot afford to live locally! 

Wal-Mart hurts taxpayers –

Because of low wages and benefits, Wal-Mart workers depend on federal, state, and locally subsidized public services.  Examples of this taxpayer assistance includes healthcare, food stamps, cash aid, aid for dependent children (AFDC), and other taxpayer funded services. 

Wal-Mart workers have even reported that they are GIVEN an application for food stamp assistance when they begin work in addition to information on how to obtain other public social services!