Don’t you wish more companies would do this when attacked? After New York Times columnist Tim Egan took a swipe at Wal-Mart over its wage policies, Wal-Mart swiped right back this weekend in a way that’s effective as well as funny.
One further point the company could have added: the company’s low prices significantly improve standards of living for low-wage and low-income shoppers across the nation. Here’s one economist’s comment from a few years back:
Wal-Mart’s low prices help to increase real wages for the 120 million Americans employed in other sectors of the economy. And the company itself does not appear to pay lower wages or benefits than similar companies, or to cause substantially lower wages in the retail sector…
[T]o the degree the anti-Wal-Mart campaign slows or halts the spread of Wal-Mart to new areas, it will lead to higher prices that disproportionately harm lower-income families…By acting in the interests of its shareholders, Wal-Mart has innovated and expanded competition, resulting in huge benefits for the American middle class and even proportionately larger benefits for moderate-income Americans.
Although the link is via a post by colleague Michael Cannon, it wasn’t any of us at Cato who wrote that: it was Jason Furman, adviser to Democratic candidates and President Obama’s current chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. More Furman on Wal-Mart here.
