We go to Wal-Mart. It is not our favorite store but we occasionally shop there. We prefer Target over Wal-Mart as far as big box stores go as most of the generics Target sells work very well while hardly any of the generic items are Wal-Mart are useable.
Check out these twenty facts about Wal-Mart :
- The average U.S. family now spends more than $4000 a year at Wal-Mart.
- In 2010, Wal-Mart had revenues of 421 billion dollars. That amount was greater than the GDP of 170 different countries including Norway, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates.
- If Wal-Mart were a nation, it would have the 23rd largest GDP in the world.
- Wal-Mart now sells more groceries than anyone else in America does. In the United States today, one out of every four grocery dollars is spent at Wal-Mart.
- Amazingly, 100 million customers shop at Wal-Mart every single week.
- Wal-Mart has opened more than 1,100 ”supercenters” since 2005 alone.
- Today, Wal-Mart has more than 2 million employees.
- If Wal-Mart were an army, it would be the second largest military on the planet behind China.
- Wal-Mart is the largest employer in 25 different U.S. states.
- According to the Economic Policy Institute, trade between Wal-Mart and China resulted in the loss of 133,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States between 2001 and 2006.
- The CEO of Wal-Mart makes more in a single hour than a full-time Wal-Mart associate makes in an entire year.
- Tens of thousands of Wal-Mart employees and their children are enrolled in Medicaid and are dependent on the government for healthcare.
- Between 2001 and 2007, the value of products that Wal-Mart imported from China grew from $9 billion to $27 billion.
- Sadly, about 85 percent of all the products sold at Wal-Mart are made outside of the United States.
- It is being reported that about 80 percent of all Wal-Mart suppliers are in China at this point.
- Amazingly, 96 percent of all Americans now live within 20 miles of a Wal-Mart.
- The number of “independent retailers” in the United States declined by 60,000 between 1992 and 2007.
- According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Wal-Mart spent 7.8 million dollars on political lobbying during 2011. That number does not even include campaign contributions.
- Today, Wal-Mart has five times the sales of the second largest U.S. retailer (Costco).
- The combined net worth of six members of the Walton family is roughly equal to the combined net worth of the poorest 30 percent of all Americans.
So do you think Wal-Mart is good or evil? And don’t forget to check out People Of Walmart. You’ll waste an entire day going through the archives because you can’t stop laughing.
