UIC News Release
January 8, 2010

CONTACT: Anne Brooks Ranallo, (312) 355-2523, aranallo@uic.edu

STUDY: WALMART DOES NOT BOOST EMPLOYMENT OR RETAIL SALES

The opening of a Walmart store in Chicago's Austin neighborhood in 2006
has not increased retail activity or employment opportunities,
according to a study by researchers at the University of Illinois at
Chicago and Loyola University Chicago.

The study found that stores near Walmart were more likely to go out of
business, eliminating the equivalent of about 300 full-time jobs --
about as many as Walmart initially added to the area.

The findings support the contention that urban Walmart stores absorb
sales from other city stores without significantly expanding the
market, said study co-author David Merriman, head of the UIC department
of economics and professor of public administration.

"What we're seeing here is that placing a Walmart in an urban setting
is basically a wash in terms of sales revenue for the city and jobs for
local residents," Merriman said. "This means that communities around
the city shouldn't see Walmart or other big-box retailers as a panacea
for local economic problems."

Walmart's expansion into larger cities across the country has stirred
debate about its potentially negative impact on local jobs, wages and
consumer prices, but such impacts had not been rigorously evaluated
until this study, Merriman said.

The researchers collected data once before, and twice after, Walmart's
opening.

Telephone surveys from March to August 2006 -- before the opening --
yielded baseline information on hours worked, salary ranges, and
employee benefits of workers in 306 nearby discount stores, drugstores,
apparel stores, toy stores, shoe stores and hardware stores.

Six months after Walmart opened, from March through November 2007, the
researchers surveyed the same stores to find out whether any had closed
or adjusted wages, employment or prices due to the opening of Walmart.
The group was able to re-survey about 56 percent of the original
stores. The study found that those businesses that competed with
Walmart and remained in business showed little change in prices, wages
or employment.

A third survey, from March to November 2008, found that of the 306
businesses originally surveyed, 82 had gone out of business during the
study period.

The researchers also assessed sales tax data from the Illinois
Department of Revenue and employment data from the Illinois Department
of Employment Security.

"Our hope is that this evaluation aids policy makers, scholars, and
community activists as they consider the full range of economic
development strategies, and not just big-box developments, in their
respective neighborhoods," said Phil Nyden, director of Loyola's Center
for Urban Research and Learning.

The study was supported by a grant from the Woods Fund. The survey
report is available at LUC.edu/curl.

UIC ranks among the nation's leading research universities and is
Chicago's largest university with 26,000 students, 12,000 faculty and
staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical center. A
hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which
UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate,
foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve
the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.

For more information about UIC, please visit www.uic.edu

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NOTE: Please refer to the institution as the University of Illinois at
Chicago on first reference and UIC on second reference.
"University of Illinois" and "U. of I." are often assumed to refer to
our sister campus in Urbana-Champaign.