Wal-Mart is good for America

Thank you for joining this debate, I will rebutt my opponents points and move on to mine My opponent stated that "While you may be correct in stating that Wal-Mart offers low wages and poor benefits, this is an issue with employment. Remember that Wal-Mart is not obligated to provide the country with jobs. Wal-Mart is obligated to provide the country with goods and services in exchange for profit. In addition, people seeking employment do not necessarily have to choose Wal-Mart. They may seek employment elsewhere. " My rebuttal is that there is limited space in other stores and if you are an american who needs a job you have to go to Wal-Mart who then can afford to pay low wages because that person has no where else to go and he needs this job. So they actually have to seek employment here in Wal-Mart. Second "Your point about the poverty line rising seems to be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Do you have any information that shows a legitimate and indisputable correlation?" First can you explain to me what hoc is and my point was a statistic so even if something else had something to do with this Wal-Mart still had an impact considering I said when Wal-Mart stores were built so Wal-Mart had something to do with this. Third "I'm not quite sure where Huntington is, but if Wal-mart built a new store outside Huntington, it is probably still within the jurisdiction of some other county. It still pays taxes, just not the same taxes, and not to Huntington." Wal-Mart would not be within the jurisdiction of some other county because as I said, Wal-Mart was placed right outside Huntington so that it would not have to contribute to the tax-base of the city. What kind of neighbor is it being? Why doesn't it want to contribute to our economy? Because that would cost more money. Fourth "Capitalism is a fairly simple economic system. A free market in which appealing to the public will earn profit. The fact that Wal-Mart is doing well as a business in and of itself shows that the American public is benefiting from it. Otherwise, the damage would be reflected in the stock market and sales figures." Wal-Mart is doing good because of several reasons, First Wal-Mart has so much money by ripping off their employees, giving them bad benefits and selling goods at higher prices. If all other stores were doing this they would be good in the stock market and sales figures to. Fifth " Wal-mart generates money, and that money doesn't simply sit in a vault. The money is used to enhance the corporation in order to provide better service so that they can make even *more* money. In this case, everyone wins except the people who, as you say, work at Wal-mart. But as I have responded, those people are more than welcome to work elsewhere." As my opponent agreed with me saying that everyone wins except the people, who as you say, work at Wal-Mart. So my opponent does agree that working at Wal-Mart is a bad idea and you don't gain anything you only lose. Also I already stated above that Wal-Mart is the only place left to work at so the people have to go their which is why Wal-Mart can pay low. My opponent also said that the "money doesn't simply sit in a vault. The money is used to enhance the corporation in order to provide better service so that they can make even *more* money. " Again my opponent has agreed with me by saying that Wal-Mart keeps on making money because of their cheap labor and expensive goods, and yes maybe a small part goes to enhancing the store but the bigger parts are actually either stored in a vault or used to build another Wal-Mart which leads to overpopulating America and making it have a lower economy. Now to my points: First •WAL MART EMPLOYEES MAKE HALF THE MONEY THEN OTHER JOBS SUCH AS COSTCO AND SAMS JOBS It is a proven research that Wal-Mart gives their employees made an average of $8.23 an hour ($13,861 a year). they make $800 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. Costco's workers make an average of $15.97 per hour; Sam's Club pays $11.52 per hour. As you see Wal-Mart employees can barely live off their salary just mantaining enough to support a very poor life while Costco workers make double the money per hour and have a good amount of money each year. Second •WAL-MART DOES NOT GIVE GOOD BENEFITS Wal-Mart does not give good benefits. Part-time Wal-Mart workers are not eligible for family medical coverage. They become eligible for individual coverage only after two years with the company which means they have to stay with Wal-Mart and if one of their family members got hurt or sick they couldn't afford the doctor's bill. Also Overall, Wal-Mart covers 48 percent of its workers with company health insurance. Costco covers 82 percent of its workers. Also, Costco's workers are able to get health insurance in six months, they receive thousands more dollars in health and retirement plans from their employer and far more of Costco's employees are included in its 401(k) and profit-sharing plans. Wal-Mart pays 66 percent of the healthcare premiums for those happy few covered employees Costco pays 92 percent. Employee turnover is 6 percent for Costco. For Sam's Club, it's 21 percent. Wal-Mart's turnover is a whopping 50 percent. Which shows that Wal-Mart gives terrible benefits compared to others and overall. Third EMPLOYEES AT WAL-MART HAVE VERY BAD LIVES They get low wages bad benefits; they barely can survive in any place if they have a family, or even in that case are living by themselves. Wal-Mart gives such bad opportunities that employees can do nothing but live a bad life. : 4 wal-mart employees spoke out and said that "My paycheck never reflected overtime pay" –Liberty Serna another was "Forced to return to work one day after severing part of his hand on the job"-Paul Moser, another one said "no help from Wal-Mart after she was injured on the job"- Latasha Barker and lastly "Managers work off the clock to get the job done" –Robbin Franklin. Wal-Mart is so unfair to the employees even after severing his hand on the JOB he has to return the next day despite the pain, despite he can't work as hard or as fast which means Wal-Mart would make him work overtime. Thank you for this debate and I hope we can debate again sometime soon, It has been really fun.