Behold!! The cancerous growth of Wal Mart!!!
 

Behold the amazing growth of a sucessful buisness model. ;)

I love Wal-Mart. Saves me money on common stuff. Mom and Pop were gouging, sad to see them go but that's competition.

ObWalMart link: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

I'm not a walmart fan, but that was fascinating, actually. I had no idea they only got into the NE in the mid 1990s (I've been in NM for so long).

That said, it certainly doesn't bother me. The same animation for Starbucks would be cool, actually.

Starbucks is shrinking not growing.

LOL they built a brand new one here it was open for two months before they closed it. :haha:

In a bad economy pepole buy their coffee from Wal Mart ;)

I'm not a big Walmart fan either but where else can you go for a power drill and underwear in one stop? :hmmm:

Depends on what you define as successful:

Going by those numbers I live below the poverty line as well.

Well they're a little more successful than is implied in the article you quoted. Full time is 40 hours a week, not 34. That brings an associates annual salary up to about $2500 above the poverty line.

Also a Walmart Associates job was never intended to support a family of four.

Nothing to write home about considering the profits that Walmart makes. Anyway 40 hours is debatable. From wikipedia:

Whatever their intentions, and it is difficult to tell at times with them, their wages are a joke.

Don't forget that Wal-Mart associates also get discounts there, and that includes everything from groceries to power drills. I worked there for awhile. If it had been more than seasonal I'd still be there. It's not bad, as jobs go, and if no one else will hire you it could be a lot worse.

I've been in the American work force since the early 1970's and it's been my experience that any job less than 40 hours is considered a part time job.

That is very true, but again, jobs like that are not intended to be careers that you raise a family on.

I was told at one place that they couldn't give me more than 30 hours a week, because I'd then be "full-time". So, yes, you can be full time at less than 40 hours. My guess is that it's a matter of company policy.

This is the result of a free market society and I am fine with it in that sense compared to the alternative :dead::dead:

At it's core I am a little more disappointed with big businesses swallowing up smaller ones and with that local ownership. By not having local ownership more dollars leave the community and are replaced with lower paying jobs, etc. On the surface it looks fine, more jobs created...., but the larger portion of the dollars ( profits ) do not stay within the community.

Could be, or maybe state law.