In a way, Walmart’s Buy America program represents the home stretch of the economic transformation the company set in motion decades ago, when it set out to replace the American middle class, rooted in small business ownership and unionized jobs, with a vast underclass that has little choice but to rely on Walmart’s shoddy, short-lived products.… Read More
Of all the places President Obama might give a speech on job creation, an Amazon warehouse is a particularly perplexing choice. Here are five ways Amazon is costing our economy and undermining real job growth.… Read More
ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell joined 4 other guests on The Stream, broadcast on Al Jazeera English’s global television news network, for a lively half-hour discussion of Washington D.C.’s big-box living wage bill. … Read More
Our suggested reading list for better understanding Amazon and the implications of its growing dominance. … Read More
In this 5-minute interview with Ross Reynolds on Seattle public radio station KUOW, Stacy Mitchell talks about how Amazon’s market power has changed the business of selling books and what the future looks like for independent bookstores. … Read More
To regenerate local businesses, we’ll need more than Buy Local campaigns; we’ll need to change public policy, which now favors big business. In this presentation, Stacy Mitchell looks at seven key policy areas to focus on.… Read More
Cape Cod is the rare community that considers regional economic impacts when weighing big-box retail development, and that makes all the difference.… Read More
State data reveal that Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, and others offer such low pay and benefits that many of their employees rely on public assistance, at a cost of billions of dollars a year. … Read More
Not having to charge sales tax fueled Amazon’s growth for nearly 20 years. While it’s impossible not to see the company as a horse that’s already out the barn door, there’s still good reason to believe that the Marketplace Fairness Act will slow Amazon’s consolidation of retailing and provide benefit to independent businesses.… Read More
