Aiming at Wal-Mart, hitting the little guy


Attacking the poor

With everything going on this week, I haven't had time to look at the details of the Maryland Wal-Mart case. But Steve Hanke and Stephen J.K. Walters cover it pretty well.

Almost surely, therefore, the company will pull the plug on plans to build a distribution center that would have employed 800 in Somerset County, on Maryland's picturesque Eastern Shore. As a Wal-Mart spokesman has put it, "you have to take a step back and call into question how business-friendly is a state like Maryland when they pass a bill that . . . takes a swipe at one company that provides 15,000 jobs."

Unfortunately, in Somerset, the new law looks more like a body blow than a "swipe." The rural county is Maryland's poorest, with per capita personal income 46% below the state average and a poverty rate 130% above it. Somerset's enduring problem is weak labor demand that greatly limits its 25,250 residents' economic opportunities.

There are just 0.8 jobs per household in Somerset, barely half the 1.5 figure that applies to the rest of the state. Somerset's top 10 list of employers features sectors like food services (average annual compensation per employee: $9,637), poultry and egg production ($14,320) and seafood preparation and packaging ($19,190).

I can't say this too many times. Government regulation limits economic activity.

How in the world was that magic 8% figure arrived at? More to the point, why doesn't it apply to every single company in Maryland?

— NeoWayland

Posted: Thu - January 26, 2006 at 04:45 AM  Tag


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