Wal-Mart is a successful and popular business for a reason. There are benefits that attract customers around the nation. Wal-Mart has the lowest prices around that are simply irresistible to consumers. This attracts people because they are able to save money by shopping here. With so many locations it is also convenient to do a one-stop shopping trip at the local Wal-Mart. They offer such a variety of products at low prices that are satisfactory to the consumer. Wal-Mart sells items that appeal to consumers at affordable prices. Wal-Mart is all about the consumer and satisfying their expectations, and they’ve become extremely successful at doing just that.

Wal-Mart, however, does have many great negative impacts as well. They take away the dignity of the manufacturers by demanding what they want and not accepting anything less. When Wal-Mart realized manufacturers could produce more for less in China, they strongly encouraged manufacturers to follow the trend. In doing so, millions of jobs were lost in the United States. The Chinese workers make fifty cents an hour or less producing these goods for Wal-Mart and have no benefits. Many U.S. manufacturers have gone out of business because competing with the prices of the goods made in China is impossible. Wages and benefits of working at Wal-Mart are half of what workers made at the electronic plants that were shut down because of lost business, but this is there only opportunity now.

My opinion is that Wal-Mart hurts the economy more than it helps it. United States citizens have suffered and lost jobs because Wal-Mart wants and demands cheap labor that is illegal in the United States. Wal-Mart wrongly abused their power and took advantage of the free trade system. Wal-Mart clearly degraded the working class by taking their manufacturers away and strongly encouraged them to move to a third world country where people’s rights are limited and will work for anything. The workers of China are being degraded and used by Wal-Mart because they don’t have minimum wage laws, like they would in the United States. This is how Wal-Mart sells their “everyday low prices.” But at what point will they realize they’ve hurt more then they helped? In my opinion, the negative effects of Wal-Mart greatly outweigh its benefits.