VOCAL Neighbors

The brains of Chicago Aldermen

So, ok. Not everyone loves Wal-Mart. (I'm a Tarjay-on-Elston gal myself). Spare me the pontifications on big box retailers from those snobby enough to not have to worry about watching their pennies. But our beloved Chicago Aldermen refused to allow Wal-Mart to build within Cook County borders. So Wal-Mart built about a block across the border in Evergreen Park. The result? At a new Wal-Mart, over 25,000 job applicants for 325 full-time jobs (starting salary: $10.99 /hour on average).

Putting it another way, at best only 1.3% of the applicants will get jobs (2.6% if they are all part time, which they supposedly aren't). Applicants have a better chance of getting into Harvard (10.3% admission rate in 2004) or Yale (9.9% admission rate in 2004) than you do of getting a job at this Wal-Mart store. Oh, and the City is foregoing somewhere around a million a year in property and sales tax revenues.

But yeah, this is supposed to be what constitutes taking a stand for "the little guy" on behalf of "corporate greed." Hmmmph. Maybe this time I'll just restrict myself to saying, "Idjits." And a reallly easy stand to take for people raking in around 90K a year to listen to people bitch about potholes.

posted by The Grants @ 7:42 PM