deanrd
Gold Member
- May 8, 2017
- 29,411
- 3,635
- 290
- Banned
- #1
What happened when Walmart left
Ten years. That’s all the time it took for the store to rise up in a clearing of the lush forest of West Virginia’s coal country and then disappear again, as though it had never been there.
Much has been written about what happens when the corporate giant opens up in an area, with numerousstudiesrecording how it sucks the energy out of a locality, overpowering the competition through sheer scale and forcing the closure of mom-and-pop stores for up to 20 miles around. A more pressing, and much less-well-understood, question is what are the consequences when Walmart screeches into reverse: when it ups and quits, leaving behind a trail of lost jobs and broken promises.
But in the end the expectation that Walmart would usher in a new, better era for McDowell County proved illusory. Her late husband Arthur, a former sharpshooter in the US Army who died in 2010, worked as a greeter at Walmart for a few years. He took the job largely in the hope of securing healthcare insurance for Henrietta, but he was told that coverage wasn’t part of the package, and the couple had to make do with Medicaid. (Which Republicans want to cut)
Linda McKinney says that the fresh food they received from Walmart, or “waste” as the corporation classed it, is sorely missed.
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Such a sad story for a huge community. These people vote Republican and the GOP will take away their food stamps and Medicare and call them lazy and worthless.
Ten years. That’s all the time it took for the store to rise up in a clearing of the lush forest of West Virginia’s coal country and then disappear again, as though it had never been there.
Much has been written about what happens when the corporate giant opens up in an area, with numerousstudiesrecording how it sucks the energy out of a locality, overpowering the competition through sheer scale and forcing the closure of mom-and-pop stores for up to 20 miles around. A more pressing, and much less-well-understood, question is what are the consequences when Walmart screeches into reverse: when it ups and quits, leaving behind a trail of lost jobs and broken promises.
But in the end the expectation that Walmart would usher in a new, better era for McDowell County proved illusory. Her late husband Arthur, a former sharpshooter in the US Army who died in 2010, worked as a greeter at Walmart for a few years. He took the job largely in the hope of securing healthcare insurance for Henrietta, but he was told that coverage wasn’t part of the package, and the couple had to make do with Medicaid. (Which Republicans want to cut)
Linda McKinney says that the fresh food they received from Walmart, or “waste” as the corporation classed it, is sorely missed.
------------------------------------
Such a sad story for a huge community. These people vote Republican and the GOP will take away their food stamps and Medicare and call them lazy and worthless.