What happened when Walmart left

[SoCalDem]

In West Virginia, the people of McDowell County can’t get jobs, and recently lost their biggest employer – the local Walmart store. They describe the devastating loss of jobs, community and access to fresh food


by Ed Pilkington in McDowell County, West Virginia

Sunday 9 July 2017 12.55 EDT Last modified on Sunday 9 July 2017 12.56 EDT

When Walmart left town, it didn’t linger over the goodbyes. It slashed the prices on all its products, stripped the shelves bare, and vanished, leaving behind only the ghostly shadow of its famous brand name and gold star logo on the front wall of a deserted shell.

The departure was so quick that telltale signs remain of the getaway, like smoldering ashes in the fireplaces of an evacuated town. Notices still taped to the glass entranceway record with tombstone-like precision the exact moment that the supercenter was shuttered: “Store closed at 7pm, Thursday 28 January 2016.”


The Inequality Project: the Guardian's in-depth look at our unequal world

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/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. But for the people of McDowell County – proud country folk laboring under the burdens of high unemployment, low income and endemic ill health – even such a fleeting visit to this rural backwater by the world’s largest retailer had a profound impact. Both in the arrival, and in the hasty leaving.

[Warpy]

1. And anything that had been there before Walmart

like a store attached to a gas station where you could at least buy bread and milk, had been killed off when WalMart moved in.

Now there's no seed money out there to open anything else. Why would a bank bother when they can just up their rates for bounced checks and make more money than a risky loan to a small retailer would bring in?

[madokie]

4. Walmarts and dollar generals

is all that is left here in mayes county. I remember not so long ago we had OTASCO, Western Auto and a whole host of mom and pop stores to cover our every need. Walmart killed 'm all off just as sure as if they snuck in through the night and shot every last one of the mom and pops dead

[Left-over]

32. It can happen here!

I live about 2 and 1/2 hours from MacDowell County and our, formerly coal based, economy is similar. About 2 months ago the last non-walmart supermarket in my town closed up its doors. For the first time in my life, I am 63 years of age, the people of this town have to drive to another town to buy groceries. If conditions do not change here, it would not surprise me if walmart did the same thing here.

[sharedvalues]

57. Exactly - America needs to protect indepedent store owners

We'd much rather have individuals running individual stores and taking ownership, then people getting only 28 hours a week at Walmart so the Waltons can avoid paying them as full-time employees. And that's true even if the gross economic output generated by the latter is slightly higher.

[WillowTree]

70. The article said that it had been the site of an old Kmart store.

[Warpy]

71. K Mart around here sells chips and other junk food

but it doesn't compete with small businesses like groceries and drug stores.

Once a Wally's Supercenter moves in, everything else seems to die, even here in the city.

[GP6971]

2. Long, but good read. n/t

[Motownman78]

3. But the pussy-grabber promised

to bring the jobs back. The county highlighted in this story was the most pro-dumpster fire in the primaries.

[Mr.Bill]

6. Maybe he can

open up a coal mine for them.

[bora13]

22. i'm hearing

that coal is going to be hugely popular for xmas gifts this year so there is that...

[Doreen]

5. If all of the many businesses that were there before Walmart

pushed them out the town would not be having as much problem with them leaving. That is however what Walmart does to communities. Before Walmart moved into my town people had decent paying jobs and wonderful employers. For every 10 people who lost their job due to Walmart 4 regained employment with Walmart at lower wage and bad treatment. Yes, Walmart is one of our biggest employers here but at a very large price to the community. Our employed people needing assistance has gone up since Walmart moved in as they refuse to give a living wage. The Walmart here tries to set working hours so employees can not work other jobs to make up for what they are not receiving. I hear they are a little better in Olympia but that probably has something to do with the fact it is the capitol.

[onethatcares]

7. but wait

walmart has been running adds here in west central florida that tout the investment of 2 billion dollars, yes folks, 2 billion fucking dollars for something that will bring back jobs to Murika.

Who's lying?

[SoCalMusicLover]

8. Hard To Feel Sorry For That County

They had Record high turnout of 70% in the election, and it was 73% to 23% in favor of Drumpf.

Doing math, that means roughly 3 out of every 4 people that were laid off, thought that Donald was their savior.

Perhaps he can bring back all those coal jobs, help to destroy the climate a bit, and in a few years, they too can have a Walmart store again. YAY!!

[exboyfil]

12. That seems to be the plan

What did Hillary Clinton offer them?

West Virginia is a uniquely beautiful state (unless you are near a mountain top removal mine) that has plenty of activities for the outdoors. I personally am not an outdoor person. Growing up in SoCal will do that for you.

My family is from West Virginia. My mom still owns a portion of a farm that my dad bought in the late 1960s (I wish we can get it sold). In probably my last trip back to the state (to bury my grandma) I encountered West Virginia "hospitality". I do not plan to ever go back.

The problems encountered by West Virginia are not unique to other rural communities (needing to drive great distances for decent shopping). I have seen this in North Dakota and to some extent in Iowa. The big difference being the roads.

People used to be able to live in these isolated enclaves there. My dad's old farm supported a family for 100 years. It is now overgrown and a portion is part of a larger hunting preserve. I think back to the structures on the farm when my dad first bought it. It was geared for sustainable living with little outside input.

[roamer65]

13. It's starting to happen in rural Michigan.

The county seats are where the larger stores like MaoMart have set up. They have killed most meaningful businesses in the smaller surrounding towns.

Within 20 years I expect these smaller towns to become ghost towns, or at best "bedroom enclaves".

[Adrahil]

28. Clinton offered a $30 Billion economic revitalization plan.

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2015/11/12/clinton-plan-to-revitalize-coal-communities/

But it required change. It's much easier to hope that a dying industry will magically come back to life.

[GitRDun]

59. Pretty impressive plan.

Too bad no one read it.

[Adrahil]

60. Well, her emails ya know...

We sure dodged that bullet. <sigh> I still think about what could have been and get depressed.

[MrPurple]

15. These people were easily duped, but Hillary could have delivered her message better

Saying, "I'm going to put a lot of coal miners out of work" was really stupid phrasing from someone who has been around politics as long as she has. Her policies of job retraining and decent health care were much better for West Virginians than what Trump will be able to deliver. It's partially the voters fault for being unrealistic and buying a con man's sales pitch, but Hillary could have done a better job of explaining that coal is a declining technology and that Trump is incapable of reviving it, but that unlike Trump, she grew up in a working class environment and has programs that will help the people there progress to better lives and Trump does not.

No matter what she said, Hillary was never going to carry West Virginia, but it could have helped her do a few percent better with the people from that demographic who are in Pennsylvania & Ohio.

[Blue_true]

50. When reading the article, I saw some unique opportunities for those people if they had the capital.

Those raspberries growing wild on the side of the road looked nice. The country is good strawberry growing land, nice red sweet ones, not the oversized junk sold in supermarkets. They have abundant sugar maple trees. I bet the peppers that grow there are great. They can develop a cottage agricultural industry supplying syrups and great flavored peppers to fancy restaurants in big cities. That industry alone can employ thousands and if the businesses profit share, provide great incomes. Plus doing all of that would allow use of flattened mountain areas without dropping a single new tree.

[obamanut2012]

75. She delivered her message just fine

The fault wasn't hers.

[MrPurple]

81. Providing the sound bite, "I'm going to put a lot of miners out of work" isn't "just fine"

'92 Bill Clinton would never have been that tone deaf.

[Cernunnos_x]

18. Odds are they'll also lose their county hospital,

which could be of benefit when they come down with various lung diseases and other maladies.

[pintobean]

27. Conditional empathy is the best kind.

[pintobean]

35. You look familiar.

https://www.discussionist.com/10151392139

Nice 1st post. Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

[pintobean]

39. ...

[NRaleighLiberal]

38. Don't blink!

[NRaleighLiberal]

46. a long blink, but bye bye bye bye!

[pintobean]

61. 17 minutes!

And so proud!

https://www.discussionist.com/10151395712

[uppityperson]

44. Oh my.

Lots of wtf there.

[LostinRed]

37. Coal is dying on its own

You can blame Obama all you want but that is just an excuse the industry uses to abuse their workers and ruin their lives. Coal is dying due to market forces like solar and natural gas. Google states closing coal burning plants in place of cheaper cleaner energy. The world moves forward look at block buster should Obama take the blame for that too?

[ProfessorGAC]

42. Unbrilliant

Something my dog would be embarrassed to have written

[Blue_true]

51. Obama DID NOT kill their coal jobs.

Cheap, abundant natural gas that is easier to use and reduces maintenance costs killed coal miner's jobs and will continue killing them. There was a discovery in the oil plateau that covers Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana of natural gas that amounted to something like 600 trillion cubic feet.
I am really surprised to see someone on this site say the "Obama killed coal jobs" tripe, it's just is not true.

[Blue_Adept]

80. I always like to provide visual context

[img][/img]

[Blue_true]

82. Good chart. Thanks. nt

[broadcaster90210]

9. They vote for Republican job killers.

Am I supposed to feel bad for them?

[BamaRefugee]

10. I knew instinctively what this video would confirm at 0:38

and "they gone send miners back to school to learn a new trade...hell, most of em cain't even read or write" @7:15

So an entire group of people, who cain't do basic math or writing, in an environment which depended SOLELY on cutting down trees ( anybody ever planted new ones?) or digging up coal, are absolutely dumbfounded that nobody wants to hire them once nobody needs manual labor anymore.

Feeling helpless and hopeless, I get it, but I will also guarantee you that 90% of these folks spent the last 3 decades saying black and brown people should "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", but when those boots are under THEIR beds now, they become delusional, trusting tRump to bring them all ruby slippers.

[BamaRefugee]

11. and kudos to the video for showing Hillary's "put a lot of coal miners out of business" IN CONTEXT!!

[exboyfil]

14. Still it was an incredibly stupid thing to say

There are a lot better ways to say it. It is unfortunate.

[BamaRefugee]

16. the MESSAGE should have sounded BIG AND HEROIC

unfortunately, the messenger just couldn't summon up that prospect in the delivery.

Not bashing her, man I wish she hadn't lost by fakery that will eventually be revealed, but oratory skills DO mean almost as much as policy wonking in a huge election.

[Blue_true]

55. Hillary was being pressed on fracking and the keystone pipeline.

Some untruths were being spoken. She had to show that she was really a green Democrat (which I felt she was on balance) and she made that statement that came back to haunt her. Yes, she could have used and should have used different phrasing. I just saw someone write on THIS site that President Obama destroyed coal jobs when such a claim is patently false. Coal lost ground big all over the world over the last decade.

Our candidates really step on their feet when talking about coal. What they should tell coalminers to their face is "Look, over the last 10 years cheap natural gas has wiped out 25,000 of your jobs while environmental regulation have cost exactly zero coal mining jobs. Natural gas and technologies that use natural gas in new ways will most likely take the remaining coal mining jobs in the next 5-10 years. You have a choice, you can wait for natural gas to finish off your towns, or you can buy in to my plan that can save your towns over the next 5-10 years and for decades to come".

[BamaRefugee]

83. yeh, but OUR PLAN makes them have to

READ AND WRITE!
they're having none of that !

[exboyfil]

19. The Dem Representative challenger Matt Detch

was crushed with the Republican getting nearly three times his vote. That republican, Evan Jenkins, promptly voted for the AHCA.

[Blue_true]

56. If the Democrat can't tie that around the republican's neck in 2018.

Then he should leave the field to a Democrat that can.

[WinkyDink]

41. Does W. Va. lack public schools?

[irisblue]

45. Where is your vid from? Edit...source at end of video the guardian.

Wow just wow.

[Kali]

48. it said it was from the Guardian at the end

on You Tube it says "Published on Oct 13, 2016

Donald Trump was more popular in McDowell County than anywhere else in America during the Republican primaries.
Subscribe to The Guardian ► http://is.gd/subscribeguardian
Paul Lewis explores the power of the Republican presidential nominee’s message in the poorest county of West Virginia."

[irisblue]

49. It was too comprehensive to be from an American network.

Worth the watching, but so hard too.
Makes me aware the (economic) "refugees" will be moving in the US again; maybe 5-10 yrs , like the Grapes of Wrath.

[Kali]

62. yep - you are correct on both counts

we seem to be on a major decent

[KG]

17. it seems easy to dismiss their supposed ignorance for voting for trumpf, but the previous 8 years

having a dem in the w.h. did nothing to stem that area's decline. that walmart closed while obama was still president.

the dem party spends too much rhetoric on the middle class and has no real answers to for the poverty striken areas of this country.

[BamaRefugee]

23. And what are the brilliant Republican ideas about poverty?

no time right now but I'd bet I can find all kinds of things Dems TRIED to do that were never brought to the floor by Republicans. And if you wanna see REAL poverty, imagine Republican ideals running that county since, say, 1930, those folks would be living in huts made of pine boughs and wearing loin cloths

[Bengus81]

66. If their main industry would have been 8 Track tape cartridges.........

It would make little diff who's in office. But when a blow hard CON MAN promises those jobs in the 8 track tape factory are coming back they should have all said BS,let's go with Hillary.

[mountain grammy]

20. Excellent article! The Guardian sees America

for the corporate nightmare it is. I think, how sad that there's nothing to replace corporate greed. A little socialism in the form of a good community center with lots of amenities might suffice, along with food co-ops, but it takes the will of the people to do it. People like to think of themselves as "rugged individuals" who can make it on their own, but the truth is, we need each other. This community needs to figure it out. Can't put all your eggs in the evil corporate basket.. or you can put your faith in a con man.

[zentrum]

21. Hopefully small

......locally owned mom and pops will come back. The old Walmart can become a community center or....a refugee center. Imagine that.

Walmart was bad for the community, underpaid its workers who couldn't survive without Government food and health care, disparaged unions, destroyed locally owned businesses, made its cheap goods using slave labor in the 3rd world. I know there's pain now, but this can be turned to good.

[3catwoman3]

30. I remember being disgusted by the story...

...one or two Thanksgivings ago about the food collection bins in the Walmart break areas to collect holiday food FOR THEIR UNDERPAID EMPLOYEES! Disgraceful.

[zentrum]

52. The super rich don't

....just want More. They want it ALL.

[gordianot]

24. Makes sense to me Walmart has a placebo effect.

As long as you have your Walmart you must be OK.

[Solly Mack]

25. K&R

The lack of access to fresh foods, the loss of jobs, and lack of health care is across the board.

Such problems aren't limited to rural areas alone.

We need to remember that.

[progressoid]

26. Marking this for a later read.

[oberliner]

29. Why are these 194 people so important?

I swear I read more stories about "coal country" than every other part of the United States combined.

[6000eliot]

47. Maybe because they are white? Seems like white people's misery matters more to the media.

[oberliner]

53. Kimball, WV has a population that is mostly African-American

Though the whole of McDowell County is 90 percent white.

[left-of-center2012]

31. Long read, but worth it

Thanks for posting it. I've added it to two non-DU sites.

[WinkyDink]

33. They can Tweet Trump. He cares.

[Barack_America]

54. Communities need to fight against WalMart opening shop in their towns.

It's no secret their business model preys on the communities that host them.

[sharedvalues]

58. More context - this story about working poor in Appalachia

https://www.thisappalachialife.com/single-post/2017/05/10/My-Mother-Wasnt-Trash

Excellent read

[irisblue]

69. Wow, is that blog gripping. Thank you for posting this.

[sharedvalues]

79. You're welcome

I reposted the article as its own thread too

[moondust]

63. Here's an idea.

The federal government buys Walmart, runs it like a public PX, dumps shareholders, forgets about maximizing profits, pays at least a living wage to all employees, does not pay absurd executive salaries, buys and sells American-made goods when feasible, and returns profits to the local communities rather than sucking them out for the benefit of shareholders out yachting in the Bahamas and a handful of billionaire heirs in Arkansas who have never worked a day in their lives.

[mountain grammy]

67. Now, that's what I'm talking about.

State and local governments should be involved too.

[Loki Liesmith]

72. Good luck

That approach tends to end very badly.

[Bengus81]

64. Whattttttt....they left with all those Coal jobs coming back?? n/t

[displacedtexan]

65. San Francisco said no when WalMart tried to move in.

And I'm sure there are other places who've turned the town-sucking vampire corporation away, too. Sadly, the small towns get chewed up and spit out.

My in-laws retired to Pittsfield, IL, where they grew up, just before WalMart built a megastore just outside the city limits (the county gave them a great deal on taxes and infrastructure). In less than a decade, every single store on the courthouse square was closed, as were both of the mid-size grocery stores.

WalMart is evil, IMHO.

[mountain grammy]

68. My neighborhood in Denver rejected Walmart.

[DonCoquixote]

73. I was in key west recently

The Tour guide at the Southernmost point pointed to the water and explained: "Right now, we are 90 miles to Havana, 120 miles to mainland Florida. That means here, we are closer to Cuba than we are to Walmart!" He then added a quip about thanking god Key West banned Walmart.

[obamanut2012]

74. Yeah, they can fuck off to be honest

Heavy, heavy Trump voters. They want their coal jobs back, even though their coal jobs kept them sick and dying for decades, kept them poor and uneducated, and destroyed their land.

They are heavily on Medicaid. Their opioid epidemic is out of control. But they hate blacks and gays and Muslims and Mexicans, and voted very, very heavily for Trump.

You reap what you sow.

My compassion and empathy for them are gone. Except for teh children.

So, they can fuck off.

[melman]

76. Lovely sentiment

Thanks for sharing.

[HAB911]

77. Amazon is coming for Walmartians

I hate both

[samnsara]

78. im so proud of my county.... no walmarts anywhere!!!!..

...when you see a Walmart come to your town, kiss your local mom and pop businesses goodbye!

[Orcrist]

84. Well

("it seems easy to dismiss their supposed ignorance for voting for trumpf, but the previous 8 years

having a dem in the w.h. did nothing to stem that area's decline.&quot


That areas decline is inevitable. No one can stop it. Coal is dead. Natural gas is killing it. What do you want democrats to do? Lie to them about bringing back the coal industry in order to get their votes like the republicans do?

[Orcrist]

85. And About Wal-Mart

I would never want to be the person to defend all the things a company the size of Walmart does. But I live in a rural area that has a Walmart about 9 miles away in the town of Thomasville, Alabama. That town has done nothing but boom in size Walmart first came there about 35 years ago. So this notion that Walmart is a consistent absolute town killer is mostly bullshit.

Also, this notion that people around here were better off with little mom and pop stores is an utter fantasy. I offer no excuses for any of Walmart's bad business practices. But at least full time employees at Walmart have access to a 401k plan, paid vacations, and health insurance. None of the small mom and pop stores around here offered that. NONE! In addition they paid a lower hourly wage and since almost all were owned by white people their hiring practices were highly racist as well. You guys can lament the decline of mom and pop stores all you want but ask a black person around here if they want a return to those days.