CatholicOnline: Wal-Mart has also been proven to decimate local economies. According to some estimates, for every Wal-Mart that opens, 100 stores in the area are forced out of business. Ten years after Wal-Mart arrived in Iowa in 1990, “the state lost 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women’s apparel stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drugstores, and 111 men’s and boys’ apparel stores.” The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that Wal-Mart was responsible for 27 billion of the U.S.’s 235-billion-dollar trade deficit with China in 2006. The total deficit accounted for 1.8 million lost jobs, of which Wal-Mart was singlehandedly responsible for about 200,000 as a result of its imports from China. Read more here.
