Walmart Closings: Bad News from Your Walmart Greeter
Bad News from your Walmart Greeter
Walmart is closing stores again. On April 11, the biggest retailer in the United States suddenly announced it was closing eight of its stores in Illinois.
Four are in Chicago, of which three are in the Black community: two on the South Side and one on the West Side. Walmart also is closing three suburban stores and one store in downstate Cahokia.
Walmart’s press release pleaded that closing the stores was a difficult decision. It highlighted how well Walmart performed its civic duties at the community level. “We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the city, including $70 million in the last couple of years to upgrade our stores and build two new Walmart Health facilities and a Walmart Academy training center,” Walmart said.
And then it explained why it suddenly and immediately closed: the chain that is famous for its everyday low prices is making everyday low profits. Its stores were under-performing, as Walmart put it. Take the money and run!
Walmart’s latest round of closings (two Chicago stores closed in 2016) makes a bad situation even worse. Since the first Chicago Walmart opened in 2006, these under-performing corporate retailers over-performed in crushing the small businesses and corner groceries that stabilized Chicago’s neighborhoods back when there was a manufacturing and job base.
Now Big-Box Store Collapse has terrible effects in rural America. It’s not easy to drive 30 minutes or more each way every time for food and basic necessities.
Left behind are young single-parent families and elderly people on fixed incomes in areas of extreme poverty, inadequate transportation, social instability, and low trust. Folks have to manage on their own without nearby access to their basic needs. Store closings prove that Capitalist distribution of basic needs has broken down because of the system’s own contradictions.
The ultimate solution is a cooperative society in which food, housing, medical care, and everything we need to survive are distributed to all according to need, not according to how much money you have.
We are being compelled to consider how to raise the political power to secure this safe future. This is a big debate. Here’s the League’s take: https://lrna.org/lrna-program/
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