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Target Is known for selling only clothing, food, and accessories. Including food

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Shop Target for everything you need to need, from groceries and essentials to clothing and electronics.

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Target has discrimination of race and gender

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There might not be a more aptly named company in America right now than Target. The big retail chain has had several setbacks lately, which, in some ways, amount to a figurative target painted on the company's back.

It became clear Target was experiencing issues when it decided to close its stores in Canada - all 133 of them. It takes a lot to get a company to give up on an entire country - especially one that's just a step away from Target's Minnesota headquarters. Target's presence in Canada lasted less than two years, and the closing of those 133 stores left more than 17,000 people without jobs.

But the company's failure in Canada was only one of Target's recent problems.

Target also took a proverbial chainsaw to its domestic workforce, laying off as many as 1,700 employees, including 200 managers. If that wasn't enough, the HR personnel who facilitated those layoffs were shown the door themselves. And, don't forget about that massive data breach that saw more than 40 million customer credit cards compromised, and lost personal information from more than 110 million people.

Between store closings, layoffs, and lawsuits, it's clear Target has its hands full. But the simple question remains: What the hell is the company's problem? Let's take a look at 10 things contributing to Target's downfall.

1. Target has a history of alleged discrimination

Target was accused of using hiring tests that were considered discriminatory based on race and gender. Consequently, in 2015, the retailer agreed to a $2.8 million settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A few years prior, Target was hit with a class-action lawsuit that alleged age discrimination. Some workers accused Target of forcing out older workers.

2. Employees are unhappy

Those who work in Target's retail stores don't seem too happy. And as you probably already know, happy employees make a happy company. All it takes are a few disgruntled workers to make your job a pretty miserable place to work. A title for one Glassdoor review written by an employee was "slave labor." And yet another anonymous employee simply wrote "Target sucks." That pretty much says it all, if you ask us.

3. Customers aren't satisfied

You can't find everything you want or need at Target. This is especially true when it comes to the grocery section. Even Target's chief operating officer said the grocery selection was lacking, Money magazine reported. Most store representatives are paid to say good things about a company, so this is very telling. Many customers aren't fully satisfied with Target's offerings, as can be seen by the 2.2% dip in the store's foot traffic. (Similar stores only had a 1.1% dip.)

4. 2017's outlook is poor

Adding insult to injury, Target's stock has been limping along. The retailer's shares took a significant dip following an earnings shortfall in late 2016. Following an anemic holiday 2016 quarter, things started to go downhill. Because sales and earnings did not meet Wall Street's expectations, it's been bad news for the big-box store. "Target's stock price sank more than 13% in early trading, putting it on pace for its worst day since Aug. 31, 1998, when the company shed more than 16 percent," CNBC reported.

5. Amazon is leaving big-box stores in the dust

You can get pretty much anything on Amazon, so this makes for stiff competition. If Target's grocery selection doesn't do it for you, Amazon has a better alternative through its AmazonFresh division. And the best part is you don't even have to leave the comfort of your home to make a purchase. With the click of your mouse you can have fresh food delivered to your doorstep. How's that for service?

6. People love Costco

Target might have a few fans left, but it's not America's favorite retailer. Another big-boxer has taken that spot: Costco. People just can't seem to get enough of buying in bulk. It's one of the best places to go if you like to buy enough toilet paper to last you until the end of next year. Shoppers seem to agree. Costco, along with Dillard's, scored an 83 out of 100 on a 2016 American Customer Satisfaction Index.

7. Warren Buffet has sounded the alarm

In an interview with CNBC, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said things are getting a bit dicey for big-box stores. Back in the day, big department stores were king. However, with so many online retailers, it has become a fight to the death. When customers can choose from a wider selection of goods online and then have them delivered to their homes (sometimes even on the same day), that often beats the need to physically visit a retail store.

"And now comes the internet, and that's the ultimate variety of things that you can get to very easily," Buffett told CNBC. "So people love variety. They love low prices and a whole bunch of things. So, it's - it just keeps evolving. And the great department stores, many of them have disappeared, and the rest are under pressure."

8. Wal-Mart is putting up a fight

Wal-Mart has decided it's not going to take this retail fight sitting down. Instead, it decided to strike back by investing in some of the latest technology. The store is working on introducing two new features to its mobile app. This is a direct hit at large retailers, including Target and Amazon, CNBC reported.

The first app feature will give customers the ability to refill and manage prescriptions from their phones. The second feature will allow customers to scan items from their phones and then add them to their shopping carts.

9. Target can be hard to find

Another thing that's wrong with Target is the increasing amount of store closings. Target stores are already not that easy to find in some neighborhoods. And now that's becoming even more difficult. Target closed 11 stores in 2015 and 13 stores in 2016.

10. Not everyone wants one in their backyard

Some people get pretty angry when they hear a big retailer will be moving in. Residents worry about the noise level and increase in traffic that a popular store will bring. Small-business owners face a potential loss of customers and rising rents as a result of big retailers moving in.

This concern sometimes gives way to a community protest. One example was back in 2011 when residents of Saranac Lake, New York, decided to fight against having a Super Wal-Mart. Instead, the residents pulled together and opened their own department store.

More from Money & Career Cheat Sheet:

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There might not be a more aptly named company in America right now than Target. The big retail chain has had several setbacks lately, which, in some ways, amount to a figurative target painted on the company's back. It became clear Target was experiencing issues when it decided to close its stores in Canada - all 133 of them.

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Target has an unrealistic expectations set by corporate.

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Target store employees don't love every single aspect of their jobs.

That's not surprising - no one does.

Still, 34 current and former team members who spoke with Business Insider shared several specific complaints.

Rude guests and understaffing are just two of the biggest downsides of Target jobs, according to the current and former employees.

Target store team members have bad days on the job, just like everyone else.

But for some employees, certain negative aspects of working at the retail giant stand out.

Business Insider recently spoke with 34 current and former Target employees, who told us all about the worst and most challenging parts of their jobs. Some of their complaints reflect the nature of retail work, while others may hint at perceived store or chainwide issues.

Here's what Target team members said they disliked about their jobs.

More: Features Target employees Target Target Insider

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Target employees share the 6 worst things about working for the retail chain

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Target store employees don't love every single aspect of their jobs. That's not surprising - no one does. Still, 34 current and former team members who spoke with Business Insider shared several specific complaints. Rude guests and understaffing are just two of the biggest downsides of Target jobs, according to the current and former employees.

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Target has their workers overworked

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Target store employees don't love every single aspect of their jobs.

That's not surprising - no one does.

Still, 34 current and former team members who spoke with Business Insider shared several specific complaints.

Rude guests and understaffing are just two of the biggest downsides of Target jobs, according to the current and former employees.

Target store team members have bad days on the job, just like everyone else.

But for some employees, certain negative aspects of working at the retail giant stand out.

Business Insider recently spoke with 34 current and former Target employees, who told us all about the worst and most challenging parts of their jobs. Some of their complaints reflect the nature of retail work, while others may hint at perceived store or chainwide issues.

Here's what Target team members said they disliked about their jobs.

More: Features Target employees Target Target Insider

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Target employees share the 6 worst things about working for the retail chain

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Target store employees don't love every single aspect of their jobs. That's not surprising - no one does. Still, 34 current and former team members who spoke with Business Insider shared several specific complaints. Rude guests and understaffing are just two of the biggest downsides of Target jobs, according to the current and former employees.

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Walmart offers more than 15 career jobs

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Learn more about hourly jobs at Sam's Club. Apply online today!

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Walmart will offer you a college education for 1 dollar a day

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Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States, so its human resources policies are always big news with national implications.

If headlines this week like "Walmart's perk for workers: Go to college for $1 a day" (CNN) or "Walmart to offer employees a college education for $1 a day" (Washington Post) sound too good to be true, that's because they largely are. The benefit is real, but it is much more restrictive than those headlines suggest. It's essentially a bulk purchasing discount for a narrow range of online college courses.

It's also a telling benefit on a number of levels. The labor market is getting stronger, and employers are needing to think harder about how to invest in recruiting and retaining employees. But the old-fashioned strategy of paying more continues to be something corporate America resists, in part out of habit and in part because offering higher wages is a little more complicated than it looks. Companies like Walmart are, in essence, trying to get creative with their compensation packages in hopes of narrowly targeting the money they expend on the core goal of recruiting and retaining desirable workers.

The question is whether policymakers will keep unemployment low long enough to break through the wall of resistance to across-the-board pay hikes and force big companies to finally just raise pay.

Walmart's actual tuition plan, explained

The Walmart program is limited to online degree programs offered by three schools - the University of Florida, Brandman University, and Bellevue University - and specifically focused on bachelor's or associate degrees in either business or supply chain management.

You won't, in other words, be able to do part-time shifts at Walmart to "pay your way through college" in the traditional sense.

But qualifying Walmart employees (including both full-time and part-time workers who've been with the company for 90 days) will get discounted tuition, books, and access to a coach who will help them decide on an appropriate program and shepherd them through the application process.

It's a nice opportunity for Walmart employees to gain a chance at upward mobility off the retail floor, and that's likely the point. Unlike higher cash wages (which of course can be used for online college tuition as well as rent, gasoline, movie tickets, medical expenses, etc.), the tuition benefit is likely to be disproportionately appealing to people who are on the more ambitious end of the distribution. It's an effort, in other words, to make Walmart more attractive specifically to the most appealing set of potential workers, a strategy other companies have pursued in recent years.

Many large employers are trying tuition benefits

Modest tuition programs have long been a staple of large employer benefits packages largely because of favorable tax treatment. The IRS allows employers to give employees several thousand dollars' worth of tuition benefits tax-free, which makes establishing a program something of a no-brainer for most companies big enough to be employing a large back-office staff anyway.

But four years ago, Starbucks blazed the trail of offering a much more ambitious reimbursement program that essentially offered taxable tuition subsidies rather than taxable wage increases.

The reason: Academic research shows that workers who are interested in tuition subsidies are different from workers who are not. While everyone likes money, Peter Cappelli's 2002 research indicates that the workers who like tuition subsidies are more productive than those who don't, and Colleen Manchester's 2012 research shows that subsidy-using employees have longer time horizons and are less likely to switch jobs.

In March of this year, a consortium of big US hotels launched a generous tuition discount program, and later that month, McDonald's substantially enhanced its tuition benefits. Kroger - another top five US employer - rolled out a new tuition program in April, and Chick-fil-A expanded its program in May.

These initiatives differ in detail, but the broad story is the same. The unemployment rate is now low, so recruiting new staff is getting harder. Companies are looking to enhance their compensation but would like to do so in targeted ways.

Corporate America is still resisting big pay raises

The basic problem facing large employers in a low-unemployment recruiting environment is that raising pay can be very costly.

It might be profitable to add one (or 100) additional workers at your currently prevailing wage rates, but impossible to find any actually qualified people who want the job at that pay level. Offering more money would be a natural solution, but you can't really offer more money to 100 new employees without doing something for your hundreds of thousands of existing employees, and raising pay across the board to recruit new staff could make your company less profitable rather than more profitable.

Indeed, some CEOs recently told a forum organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas that they would never offer broad-based pay raises again.

The truth, however, is that this is less up to the discretion of CEOs than they would like. Six years ago, after all, companies weren't increasing the generosity of their tuition programs. They didn't change their minds about this because they suddenly became nice people; they changed their minds because the labor market got tighter. Going forward, the Fed might raise interest rates fast enough to prevent wage pressures from ever really building, or a new financial crisis might derail the economy.

But if not, companies will find that the longer the jobless rate stays low, the harder they have to dig for help. For some, that will mean accepting smaller profit margins, while for others it will mean higher prices. And for those companies that can't raise prices, it may mean actually running the risk of being driven out of business as companies with more pricing power poach their staff. For now, though, most big employers are only dabbling in generosity, with tuition discounts serving as an easy step into the shallow end of the pool.

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Walmart's too-good-to-be-true "$1 a day" college tuition plan, explained

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Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States, so its human resources policies are always big news with national implications. If headlines this week like "Walmart's perk for workers: Go to college for $1 a day" (CNN) or "Walmart to offer employees a college education for $1 a day" (Washington Post) sound too good to be true, that's because they largely are.

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If you a special employee you choose to raise your pay up to 20-40 dollars, on an unknown account due the forgetfulness of which page it was on.

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Walmart will personally help your coverage (If an employee) If you have a disability pg. 188

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Walmart delivers electronics to you pg. 222

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Walmart has heath care coverage including dental.

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Wal-Mart has been part of our lives for over half a century now, being a dominant force in the retail sector. However, there are several debates among economists whether the company has a positive or negative influence on our society and economy, where many of them criticize it for its careless approach to becoming the powerhouse it has become today. Although it is good to hear out ideas from these experts, we, as consumers, can also have our own thoughts about this mega-retailer. To come up with an informed and wise decision, let us look at its pros and cons.

List of Pros of Wal-Mart

1. Wal-Mart Economy
According to the economic advisor to President Barack Obama, James Furman, Wal-Mart and the "Wal-Mart economy" has been doing good for the American workers and low-income families who cannot afford to purchase more expensive products made in the US. Also, tax payers pay part of the healthcare costs of the retailer's employees. In his work titled "Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story", there is no question that the company's price reductions have provided benefits to millions of American workers who are employed outside the retail industry.

2. Varied Selection of Products
Whatever product you need at Wal-Mart, there will be a section for you to check out. You can head to the chain and purchase groceries for the week, buy electronic devices, get your car repaired and shop for clothes all in a single trip. It is truly a one-stop shop, unlike any other store of its kind. Moreover, it does not charge a membership fee in order for you to enjoy savings.

3. Low Prices
Wal-Mart is known for selling items at much lower prices than other retailers, which simply means that buying a product here, over a more locally owned store, can save you more money. Other retailers cannot compete with the low prices it offers. Many people even praise this giant retail chain for making it possible for them to afford goods they need most. Low prices are what the company is known for, and this is true for all its products, including electronics, food and everything in between.

4. Huge Employer
This corporation is the biggest private employer in the US and is vital to the country's economy based on this statistics alone. The jobs that Wal-Mart creates are highly essential, making it one of the most important companies in the world.

5. Additional Business to Areas
When a new Wal-Mart store is built, its location immediately attracts additional businesses. Patrons from surrounding communities would travel into the area to do their shopping and would often stick around, spending their money at various local hubs. If a place does not have such a store of their own, its citizens would think of driving to somewhere that has one.

6. More Diverse Business Model
Wal-Mart investors are exposed to a more diverse business model, due to the fact that the company is growing to other countries, such as Mexico, Brazil and China. Though this attribute could also bring negative issues, such as language barriers, tax and other regulations, it is good for consumers no matter what language they speak. Plus, by having operations in multiple jurisdictions, investors gain exposure to other currencies and middle-class growth in other countries.

List of Cons of Wal-Mart

1. Bad Healthcare Coverage
According to critics, Wal-Mart is a highly regarded household name that has one of the worst health care policies in all of corporate America. To account for low wages, it pushes employees to get on several government-funded programs, such as Medicaid, public assistance and public housing. Since its founder's death, it has been stated that several of its policies have been changed for the worst. It is not that the company does not offer health insurance to their employees; it just comes at a high price for workers earning minimum wage.

2. Anti-Employee Policies
It is stated that Wal-Mart shows little to no respect to its employees, where they are severely mistreated and their only purpose is to fit into the philosophy that the company looks out for itself. Statistics shows that from 1999 to 2005 alone, the store had been part of several class action lawsuits in different states involving hundreds of thousands of former and current employees who had their work hours and wages tampered with, as well as abused.

3. Illegal Citizens and Racism
In 2003, Wal-Mart was exposed to the public and charged for hiring illegal citizens to do some cleaning after hours. The case, which was led by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, lasted more than 4 years and produced a huge number of arrests of undocumented workers. However, the company managed to evade criminal sanctions by settling to pay millions of dollars and then disputed the claims racial and gender discrimination. More evidence of racism from Wal-Mart stores has been evident in the said cases.

4. Un-Environmentally Friendly Operations
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection signed a consent order and agreement with the corporation in 1999 to improve environmental construction throughout the state. The agreement was made due to Wal-Mart violating water quality laws and regulations at one of its construction sites. In 2001, the company was again fined a million dollars for a similar violation.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department reached an agreement with Wal-Mart to solve issues of clean water violations at several locations covering 5 states. This was the first ever federal enforcement against a company for multi-state violations, and the settlement forced the giant retail chain to create an environmental management plan that is worth millions of dollars to improve its compliance with the laws at each site and to minimize the result of building on watersheds and streams.

Now, with the above lists of pros and cons, it is up to us to see Wal-Mart as a positive and negative influence on our society. But, we should be smart in using their services to our advantage and satisfying our needs through them.

Author Bio
Natalie Regoli is a child of God, devoted wife, and mother of two boys. She has a Master's Degree in Law from The University of Texas. Natalie has been published in several national journals and has been practicing law for 18 years.

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List of 10 Main Pros and Cons of Walmart

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Wal-Mart has been part of our lives for over half a century now, being a dominant force in the retail sector. However, there are several debates among economists whether the company has a positive or

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1. Walmart is now offering free two-day shipping, via its no-frills Shipping Pass service. Members who pay the $49 annual fee get the free shipping with no minimum purchases.

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Shop for Free 2 Day Shipping Home. Buy products such as Keurig K-Classic K50 Single Serve, K-Cup Pod Coffee Maker, Rhubarb, Home Source TV Stand at Walmart and save.

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Walmart has a deli.

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Shop for Deli in Fresh Food. Buy products such as Kunzler Sweet Bologna, 7 lb, Smith's Braunschweiger, Deli Sliced, Polk's® Ham Steaks 16 oz. Pack at Walmart and save.

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Walmart has more self checkout.

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Walmart has a long history of providing comprehensive health care and benefits to our associates, and we're proud of the quality plans we offer, which are among the best in the retail industry. We believe that when associates have stability in areas like health care, maternity and parental leave, paid time off and retirement planning, they're better able to bring their best selves to work.
Health care and insurance options made affordable

All eligible associates - both full- and part-time - have affordable options that include no lifetime maximum and eligible preventive care covered at 100%.

We offer medical plans starting at around $26 per pay period, as well as dental and vision plans.

Coverage for domestic partners is available.

Our Centers of Excellence program covers select spine and heart procedures, knee and hip replacement surgeries, organ and tissue transplants, and breast, lung and colorectal cancers - all at no cost to associates.

Associates have free access to nurse care managers and health care advisors.

Health reimbursement plans provide $300 to $1,000 and our health savings account plan gives up to a $700 match to help pay for eligible network or non-network medical expenses.

Associates can take advantage of Resources for Living, a free confidential counseling and health information service.

Additional options include company-paid life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, critical illness insurance, short- and long-term disability insurance and business travel accident insurance.

Save for retirement, save with exclusive discounts

Associates can contribute to their 401(k) starting on their first day with the company. Walmart provides up to a 6% match after one year on the job.

Associates can participate in an associate stock purchase plan with company match.

Our associate discount card offers a 10% discount on fresh fruits, vegetables and regularly priced general merchandise at Walmart stores.

The Associate Discount Center provides exclusive discounts on travel, cell phone services, entertainment and other goods and services not available in Walmart stores.

Paid time off empowers associates to decide how they use their leave by streamlining paid vacation, sick time, personal time and holiday time into one category.

Making time for families with maternal and parental leave
Families take many forms. However our associates grow theirs, we're here to help. Our maternity, parental and adoption benefits are available to all salaried and full-time hourly associates who have worked at Walmart for at least 12 months.
HOW IT WORKS
Maternity: The enhanced maternity benefit supports birth moms with up to 10 weeks of protected paid time away from work.

Birth mothers can take up to 10 weeks of protected paid maternity leave.
They'll receive 100% of their pay, based on their average weekly wages.
They can use the new parental benefit (see below) for an additional six weeks, for a total of 16 weeks of protected paid leave for birth mothers.

Parental: The parental benefit supports associates who become a parent through a birth, adoption or foster-care placement, with up to six weeks of protected paid time away from work. It's available to associates in all states, including California, Oregon and other paid parental leave states.

The parental benefit is for new legal parents, guardians and foster parents only.
New parents can take up to six weeks of protected paid parental leave.
The associate's time away needs to be continuous, meaning they take it all at once.
The associate can use their parental benefit at any point in the 12 months following the date they became a new parent through a birth, adoption or foster-care placement.
Salaried associates may also be able to use the two-week family care pay program to cover the time they care for a spouse or dependent who has an eligible medical condition.
Associates receive 100% of their pay, based on their average weekly wages.

Adoption: This benefit pays associates back, up to $5,000, for expenses related to adopting a new family member. There's an annual maximum of $10,000 and a lifetime maximum of $20,000 per associate. Qualified expenses include, but are not limited to:

Application fees, agency and placement fees, legal fees and court costs
Home suitability studies
Immigration, immunization and translation fees
Transportation, meals and lodging
Parent, child and family adoption counseling

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Walmart has a long history of providing comprehensive health care and benefits to our associates, and we're proud of the quality plans we offer, which are among the best in the retail industry. We believe that when associates have stability in areas like health care, maternity and parental leave, paid time off and retirement planning, they're better able to bring their best selves to work.

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Walmart has more stores inside like Auntie Anne's.

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Soft Pretzels Mobile Wal-Mart #853| Auntie Anne's Pretzels

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Come to Mobile Wal-Mart #853 Auntie Anne's for delicious soft pretzels, dips and lemonade.In our opinion, they are as good as homemade soft pretzels.

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Walmart is with Sams Club and employees get discounts at Sam's club.

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Learn more about hourly jobs at Sam's Club. Apply online today!

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The company even opened a test center near the headquarters.

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Walmart has a long history of providing comprehensive health care and benefits to our associates, and we're proud of the quality plans we offer, which are among the best in the retail industry. We believe that when associates have stability in areas like health care, maternity and parental leave, paid time off and retirement planning, they're better able to bring their best selves to work.
Health care and insurance options made affordable

All eligible associates - both full- and part-time - have affordable options that include no lifetime maximum and eligible preventive care covered at 100%.

We offer medical plans starting at around $26 per pay period, as well as dental and vision plans.

Coverage for domestic partners is available.

Our Centers of Excellence program covers select spine and heart procedures, knee and hip replacement surgeries, organ and tissue transplants, and breast, lung and colorectal cancers - all at no cost to associates.

Associates have free access to nurse care managers and health care advisors.

Health reimbursement plans provide $300 to $1,000 and our health savings account plan gives up to a $700 match to help pay for eligible network or non-network medical expenses.

Associates can take advantage of Resources for Living, a free confidential counseling and health information service.

Additional options include company-paid life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, critical illness insurance, short- and long-term disability insurance and business travel accident insurance.

Save for retirement, save with exclusive discounts

Associates can contribute to their 401(k) starting on their first day with the company. Walmart provides up to a 6% match after one year on the job.

Associates can participate in an associate stock purchase plan with company match.

Our associate discount card offers a 10% discount on fresh fruits, vegetables and regularly priced general merchandise at Walmart stores.

The Associate Discount Center provides exclusive discounts on travel, cell phone services, entertainment and other goods and services not available in Walmart stores.

Paid time off empowers associates to decide how they use their leave by streamlining paid vacation, sick time, personal time and holiday time into one category.

Making time for families with maternal and parental leave
Families take many forms. However our associates grow theirs, we're here to help. Our maternity, parental and adoption benefits are available to all salaried and full-time hourly associates who have worked at Walmart for at least 12 months.
HOW IT WORKS
Maternity: The enhanced maternity benefit supports birth moms with up to 10 weeks of protected paid time away from work.

Birth mothers can take up to 10 weeks of protected paid maternity leave.
They'll receive 100% of their pay, based on their average weekly wages.
They can use the new parental benefit (see below) for an additional six weeks, for a total of 16 weeks of protected paid leave for birth mothers.

Parental: The parental benefit supports associates who become a parent through a birth, adoption or foster-care placement, with up to six weeks of protected paid time away from work. It's available to associates in all states, including California, Oregon and other paid parental leave states.

The parental benefit is for new legal parents, guardians and foster parents only.
New parents can take up to six weeks of protected paid parental leave.
The associate's time away needs to be continuous, meaning they take it all at once.
The associate can use their parental benefit at any point in the 12 months following the date they became a new parent through a birth, adoption or foster-care placement.
Salaried associates may also be able to use the two-week family care pay program to cover the time they care for a spouse or dependent who has an eligible medical condition.
Associates receive 100% of their pay, based on their average weekly wages.

Adoption: This benefit pays associates back, up to $5,000, for expenses related to adopting a new family member. There's an annual maximum of $10,000 and a lifetime maximum of $20,000 per associate. Qualified expenses include, but are not limited to:

Application fees, agency and placement fees, legal fees and court costs
Home suitability studies
Immigration, immunization and translation fees
Transportation, meals and lodging
Parent, child and family adoption counseling

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Walmart has a long history of providing comprehensive health care and benefits to our associates, and we're proud of the quality plans we offer, which are among the best in the retail industry. We believe that when associates have stability in areas like health care, maternity and parental leave, paid time off and retirement planning, they're better able to bring their best selves to work.

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4) Walmart has exactly 71 Coupons which can save you (if bought with all those coupons and nothing else) 177.65

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Find Walmart coupons at your Mountain View Store, 600 Showers Dr, Mountain View, CA 94040 - Walmart.com

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Find Walmart coupons at your Mountain View Store in Mountain View, CA. Get Mountain View Store store hours and driving directions, buy online, and pick up in-store at 600 Showers Dr, Mountain View, CA 94040 or call 650-917-0796

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3)  Walmart is more international.

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Wal-Mart casts a global shadow across the lives of hundreds of millions of people, whether or not they ever enter a Supercenter. With $405 billion in sales in the last fiscal year, Wal-Mart is so big, and so obsessively focused on cost-cutting, that its actions shape our landscape, work, income distribution, consumption patterns, transport and communication, politics and culture, and the organization of industries from retail to manufacturing, from California to China.

Yet other paths are possible, and the company would not be so influential had the world not changed to enable its metastasized growth. Had unions been stronger, especially in the South, and more devoted to organizing the growing service sector, Wal-Mart might not have become such an obstacle to labor renewal. If antitrust enforcement had not been narrowed, Wal-Mart could never have grown as big as it did. There would be no such mega-stores if state governments had not repealed Depression-era fair-trade laws. And Wal-Mart's push of American consumer--product manufacturing to China depended on a previously established political and technological foundation of pro-corporate globalization.

But it would be a mistake to say that Wal-Mart is merely following the new logic of retail competition, for Wal-Mart reinforces all dimensions of this emerging business climate. As Jennifer Stapleton, assistant director of the United Food and Commercial Workers' project Making Change at Walmart, puts it, "They set the rules."

Consider Ana Sanchez, a 45-year-old immigrant to Southern California from Mexico. Wal-Mart does not employ her but is in some sense her boss. Sanchez worked two years at a temp agency that staffed a large California warehouse. She was trying to put her three children through college in Oaxaca, Mexico, on pay that started at $6.75 an hour, then rose to $8, with no benefits. She retrieved cartons, put labels on products, then shrink-wrapped plastic around pallets to ship. Mainly, she shipped children's clothing made in China to Wal-Mart.

The work was hard, fast, and stressful, with "constant pressure," she says. "If I killed myself to make 2,000 labels one day, the next day, they'd give me 200 more. They kept raising the quota. It was very dangerous. And with every order from Wal-Mart, the supervisors would say there's an urgency for us to do it. Managers would complain that the company was putting a lot of pressure on them."

Rushing to wrap a pallet in April 2009, Sanchez fell and injured herself. Despite an unblemished work record, the agency fired her, supposedly for a paperwork error, but more likely-she believes-because she was hurt. Unable to find another job, she lives in a tiny room in a cousin's house, making tamales to sell and looking for work. "I don't want to go back to Mexico destroyed and a failure," she says.

Zahir Chowdury (he asked not to use his real name) manages factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for an Asian multinational apparel manufacturer whose clients prominently include Wal-Mart. He admires Wal-Mart for setting "very structured, systematic" guidelines for everything from energy efficiency to treatment of workers. But now he worries that his prices are rising for inputs, such as cotton. His selling price has changed little over five years, but he hopes Wal-Mart will agree to pay more for finished garments, which is usually about 5 percent less than anyone else pays but for longer production runs.

It's hard, however, to meet Wal-Mart's standards at Wal-Mart's price. That's why the U.S.-based Worker Rights Consortium frequently uncovers major workers' rights violations in the Bangladeshi (or Indian or Cambodian) factories of suppliers to Wal-Mart and other big retailers, despite their codes of conduct and monitors, says WRC Executive Director Scott Nova.

"Expectations on quality are up, also on managing logistics," Chowdury says. "The lead time is squeezed. Getting fabric is difficult. Everything is getting squeezed," including his workers. Though the new minimum wage is about $42 a month, he claims his company pays $90 a month because at anything much lower, workers "can't survive." He hopes someone will build power lines and roads into the countryside, so he can move the factory to an area where "every worker can survive at $70 to $80 a month," and he could pay less. Would Wal-Mart one day just move some place cheaper? "Where will they move?" he asks.

In July 2007, Wal-Mart expanded its discount store into a new Supercenter, with full grocery service, in Galesburg, Illinois, a middling industrial and market town hard-hit by globalization. Todd Frakes, a life-long grocer, managed one of two Econofoods grocery stores in town when the Supercenter opened. "The first week, our sales were down about 40 percent," he recalls. "Then in about six to eight weeks it evened out, to about 18 percent off." They tried everything: deep discount sales (Wal-Mart beat them), special events (Nascar Day), better ads, playing up their hometown knowledge of their customers. They cut back hours to avoid layoffs. Just over a year later, the chain's corporate managers closed the two stores.

"The thing with Wal-Mart is they're just huge," Frakes says. "It's hard to compete when they get stuff so cheap. It's been really tough on Galesburg. We've lost a lot of mom-and-pop businesses." One independent grocery, Hi-Lo, survives, and Frakes works there now.

"There's been two of three factors that helped us," Hi-Lo assistant manager Jeff Jefferson says. "The number of years we've been here in town and customer loyalty. We have fair prices and quality meat and produce. We're never going to be the biggest, newest store, but we can be the friendliest, and we offer service. We still cut our own meat, and we still carry your groceries to the car."

Such stories illustrate a few dimensions of "The Wal-Mart Effect," as journalist Charles Fishman titled his book on the far-flung influence of Wal-Mart. Boosters of the company contend that every new store has just two relevant effects: First, it energizes the local economy; and, second, lower prices for local shoppers compensate for other negative effects.

The preponderance of research tells a different story. The net effect of Wal-Mart entering a local market is to reduce local employment, reduce area wage rates and total payroll (especially in retail), eliminate other businesses (especially small shops and small chain stores that directly compete with Wal-Mart), and raise poverty rates. University of California, Irvine, economist David Neumark and colleagues reported in a 2007 study that "on average, Wal-Mart store openings reduce retail employment by about 2.7 percent, implying that each Wal-Mart employee replaces about 1.4 employees in the rest of the retail sector."

Wal-Mart knocks out many local businesses, economist Kenneth Stone discovered when he surveyed Iowa during the company's first decade there starting in the 1980s. Between 1983 and 1993, Wal-Mart opened around 45 stores in Iowa. During that period, the state lost 555 grocery stores, 88 department stores, 298 hardware stores, 444 apparel shops, 293 building supply stores, and 511 other retail outlets--as much as 43 percent of some categories of retail stores. More recently, a team from Loyola University found that 82 out of 306 businesses within a four-mile radius of Chicago's first Wal-Mart failed since the giant retailer opened in 2006, eliminating an estimated 300 jobs, roughly equaling the number of workers in the new Wal-Mart.

When Wal-Mart displaces local small businesses, it also typically reduces income and employment for local business--service providers, such as lawyers, bankers, accountants, printers, and newspaper publishers, since those services are centralized in Wal-Mart headquarters. Weakening small-business and professional networks further diminishes the community's social capital, according to economists Stephan Goetz and Anil Rupasingha.

Wal-Mart's dramatic transformation of warehousing and logistics has also increased efficiency significantly in both its own extensive operations and in third-party logistics companies with which it contracts. Wal-Mart often adopts early innovations like bar codes, then accelerates their use because its size influences industry standards. Productivity increases in the context of economic growth are generally good if the fruits of enhanced productivity are shared with workers-largely not true with Wal-Mart. Workers gain little because Wal-Mart zealously fights unionization of its own employees and its global system (including unionized dock workers), and its squeeze on suppliers and competitors increases incentives to resist unions.

Wal-Mart has also quite likely reduced U.S. employment throughout its extensive supply chain, despite suppliers' expectation that they would hire more people as Wal-Mart sold more of their product. But there are stories, well documented by Fishman and others, of Wal-Mart's virtual dismantling of iconic supplier firms such as Huffy (bicycles), Master Lock (padlocks), Lakewood Engineering & Manufacturing (fans), and L.R. Nelson (lawn sprinklers).

In each case, Wal-Mart kept demanding a lower price, at times challenging suppliers to match the price of cheap imports. The companies improved productivity, cut corners on quality, and pressured their own employees and suppliers (who in turn tightened the screws on down the line). But eventually, Wal-Mart pushed these suppliers out of the country to China, Mexico, and any other place that could match "the China price."

From 1997 to 2004, Fishman reports, retail jobs grew more than half as fast as the population, and more than 70 percent of those new jobs were at Wal-Mart. During that period, 3.1 million manufacturing jobs disappeared, so that by 2003, more Americans were working in retail than in manufacturing. Simultaneously, Wal-Mart tripled its imports from China, importing in 2004 about 10 percent of all Chinese exports to the U.S. It seems likely that most of those imports were still nominally from hollowed-out American businesses. So Wal-Mart sped up both American deindustrialization and consolidation of a low-wage, bargain--driven consumer culture where quality and price were both cheapened.

***

It's not even clear that the surviving, compliant suppliers have prospered. Two independent studies found that suppliers to Wal-Mart, especially smaller businesses, are likely to end up with lower profits than suppliers who service other big retailers. Beyond squeezing prices, Wal-Mart often "takes a bite" out of suppliers, delaying payments to them. But some suppliers, mainly large ones, may gain enough from Wal-Mart's big orders to make increased profits despite the squeeze.

The Wal-Mart effect on wages is more clearly harmful to workers, whether they work for the company, its suppliers, or its competitors. A group of University of California, Berkeley, researchers led by Arindrajit Dube, found in 2007 "strong evidence that Wal-Mart entry reduced average and total retail earnings, retail wages, and health benefits for retail workers over [the 1990s]-primarily in urban areas." The loss of 1.5 percent of earnings for all retailers in a county, plus lost health benefits, with the opening of each Wal-Mart came from substituting poorly paid workers for better paid workers and from Wal-Mart "driving down wages of competitors."

On average, Dube reports, workers at large retailers make about 15 percent more than employees at Wal-Mart, which pays an average sales associate $8.81 an hour, according to market researcher IBISWorld.

The Berkeley researchers calculated that in 2000, the downward pressure on wages from Wal-Mart was costing retail workers nationally about $4.5 billion a year. Simply the threat that Wal-Mart Supercenters were coming to Southern California led unionized grocery chain managers in 2003 to unite in a lockout-imposed in response to a strike against one chain-against the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The conflict ended with concessions from workers, such as a two-tier wage schedule and provisions reducing insurance coverage. Three years later, only 54 percent of union grocery workers, down from 94 percent, had health insurance.

"Long term, anybody that continues to gain market share is going to be dominant," says UFCW organizing director Patrick O'Neill. "It's like the U.S. and the Third World. Either we take them up to our standard, or they'll bring us down to theirs."

But what about all the money consumers save shopping at Wal-Mart? Experts estimate that Wal-Mart's prices run from about 5 percent to 25 percent below most competitors. Commissioned by Wal-Mart, IHS Global Insight calculated that the company's lower prices saved U.S. consumers $365 billion in 2007-about $1,200 per person or $3,100 per household. Such analysis led even some Democrats like Jason Furman, now economic adviser to President Barack Obama, to praise Wal-Mart as a boon to the poor. Although Furman advocates a higher minimum wage (as Wal-Mart does), he argues that even modestly higher Wal-Mart worker wages would eliminate the company's profits or push up prices, thus implicitly hurting them.

But an Economic Policy Institute team of economists authoritatively criticized Global Insight's methodology and judged its projected savings from shopping at Wal-Mart "implausible." For example, EPI critics say, the Global Insight report credited Wal-Mart with reducing prices it does not affect, like other services that make up 60 percent of the consumer price index. In any case, the EPI economists argued, if the savings are as big as claimed, Wal-Mart could raise wages and keep prices low. The Berkeley group also concluded that a higher minimum wage for big-box retailers would help retail workers and result in only a tiny increase in retail prices.

Government at all levels also loses when Wal-Mart moves in, lowers pay, eliminates jobs, and pushes families into poverty: As a result, government ends up paying for their Medicaid, S-CHIP (children's health insurance), food stamps, and other aid. Indeed, in many states, Wal-Mart employees lead the list of Medicaid beneficiaries and their children lead the S-CHIP rolls, because they cannot afford the company's health plan. In 2004, the Democratic staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee calculated that a 200-employee Wal-Mart store could cost federal taxpayers $420,750 a year (more than $2,000 per employee).

But Wal-Mart's spillover impact goes further. According to Good Jobs First, an economic-development research group, Wal-Mart has collected more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks and other subsidies from state and local governments (about $70 million annually). It uses gimmicks to avoid another $300 million a year in taxes (and created Wal-Mart.com as a supposedly independent corporation to avoid collecting state sales taxes). The company systematically challenges all property-tax bills.

Beyond its economic impact, Wal-Mart is notorious for censoring the books and recordings it stocks, excluding some presumably for their progressive political leanings and demanding bowdlerized versions of others. As historian Bethany Moreton recounts in To Serve God and Wal-Mart, the company has promoted an amalgam of evangelical Christianity and free--market ideology in colleges and elsewhere and draws much of its management from this cultural milieu. More recently, it has ventured into electoral politics with large political donations, mobilization against politicians supporting the Employee Free Choice Act (including heavy-handed pressure on its own employees), and the promotion of its own version of "Wal-Mart Moms" as a key swing constituency (an implicit buffer against attacks of its treatment of employees).

Wal-Mart's greatest clout comes simply from its size, which in another era would have provoked anti-trust action-as happened with A&P from 1915 to 1979, even though A&P, like Wal-Mart, grew big organically rather than by acquiring other firms. "Wal-Mart is a symptom of a true revolution in the regulation of the political economy," says Barry Lynn, a fellow of the New America Foundation. Bigness itself can be a problem, and competition as much as efficiency should be our goal, he argues, especially since Wal-Mart's efficient bigness creates a dangerous deflationary downward spiral of wages and prices. Wal-Mart is not, despite its size and influence on prices, a monopoly, but Lynn says it may often act as a monopsony-a company with anticompetitive influence as a buyer-meaning that Wal-Mart is able to exert substantial control over supplier companies and their prices by accounting for a quarter or more of their sales.

"Wal-Mart's Slump Persists," read a February Wall Street Journal headline, as same-store sales dropped for the seventh quarter in a row. But hold the tears: Overall sales and profits were up. Yet Wal-Mart must grow to make its model work-breaking into urban markets, new countries, new demographics (more upscale), new formats (more conversions to Supercenters and small, neighborhood stores), new products (more electronics), and new image (going beyond green). But as industry analyst Bill Dempsey of the UFCW puts it, "They don't have an image problem. They have a reality problem."

Even so, there are alternatives. After leaving a trail of bankruptcies and corporate consolidations in its wake, the undisputed shark of retail is being seriously nibbled by agile minnows-or maybe some halibuts. In groceries, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's aim at higher price, quality, and service niches. Even though they are nonunion, they attempt to offer attractive work and competitive pay. Kroger-the most unionized of the three big merged grocery corporations-competes effectively with Wal-Mart in many markets by adapting to communities, creating a pleasant shopping experience, and holding prices fairly close to Wal-Mart's levels.

Nobody literally goes head-to-head with Wal-Mart, but two companies with much better pay and benefits and less hostility to unions come close to such a face-off and are faring well. Costco, which originated on the West Coast and then went national, is a members-only warehouse club, like Wal-Mart's struggling Sam's Club. But according to IBISWorld, the average Sam's Club cashier makes $9.48 an hour, and the average Costco cashier makes $15.50 an hour. A Costco worker also gets a substantial annual bonus, a 401(k) retirement plan, and health insurance, 90 percent of which is paid by the employer. The Sam's Club cashier can buy insurance at work.

How does Costco do it? Low turnover of its trained, fairly satisfied, partly unionized, highly productive workers is one key element, says R.J. Hottovy, director of consumer research for Morningstar. The store draws a more affluent clientele than Wal-Mart, and there's a limited stock (about 4,000 items compared to about 60,000 at a Supercenter) of often high-quality, heavily discounted products, including a successful house brand. Costco practices "creative merchandising" of products for which it drives a hard bargain, then takes no more than a 14 percent markup, leading to higher turnover of goods and double the value of sales per store of its competitors, according to IBISWorld.

Operating 189 stores in Michigan and some nearby states, Meijer is a widely respected, generous corporate citizen in many communities. Entirely unionized in Michigan, Meijer originated the one-stop shopping supercenter roughly 50 years ago. Now facing a challenge from Wal-Mart and other retailers, Meijer is experimenting with different sizes of stores, both bigger and smaller, and has promoted itself as eco-friendly, using some wind power and offering local "home grown" meat and produce. Meijer does not pay as well as Costco, but it beats Wal-Mart on vacations, holidays, pensions, insurance, and a voice at work.

Ultimately, it is possible to compete with Wal-Mart, offer good deals to customers, deal fairly with suppliers, pay workers decently, and even respect their right to organize. Better public policies and stronger unions would help. Maybe Wal-Martization is not the end of history after all.

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Wal-Mart casts a global shadow across the lives of hundreds of millions of people, whether or not they ever enter a Supercenter. With $405 billion in sales in the last fiscal year, Wal-Mart is so big, and so obsessively focused on cost-cutting, that its actions shape our landscape, work, income distribution, consumption patterns, transport and communication, politics and culture, and the organization of industries from retail to manufacturing, from California to China.

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2)  Walmart recently announced it was testing home delivery via ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft

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Walmart has a long history of providing comprehensive health care and benefits to our associates, and we're proud of the quality plans we offer, which are among the best in the retail industry. We believe that when associates have stability in areas like health care, maternity and parental leave, paid time off and retirement planning, they're better able to bring their best selves to work.
Health care and insurance options made affordable

All eligible associates - both full- and part-time - have affordable options that include no lifetime maximum and eligible preventive care covered at 100%.

We offer medical plans starting at around $26 per pay period, as well as dental and vision plans.

Coverage for domestic partners is available.

Our Centers of Excellence program covers select spine and heart procedures, knee and hip replacement surgeries, organ and tissue transplants, and breast, lung and colorectal cancers - all at no cost to associates.

Associates have free access to nurse care managers and health care advisors.

Health reimbursement plans provide $300 to $1,000 and our health savings account plan gives up to a $700 match to help pay for eligible network or non-network medical expenses.

Associates can take advantage of Resources for Living, a free confidential counseling and health information service.

Additional options include company-paid life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, critical illness insurance, short- and long-term disability insurance and business travel accident insurance.

Save for retirement, save with exclusive discounts

Associates can contribute to their 401(k) starting on their first day with the company. Walmart provides up to a 6% match after one year on the job.

Associates can participate in an associate stock purchase plan with company match.

Our associate discount card offers a 10% discount on fresh fruits, vegetables and regularly priced general merchandise at Walmart stores.

The Associate Discount Center provides exclusive discounts on travel, cell phone services, entertainment and other goods and services not available in Walmart stores.

Paid time off empowers associates to decide how they use their leave by streamlining paid vacation, sick time, personal time and holiday time into one category.

Making time for families with maternal and parental leave
Families take many forms. However our associates grow theirs, we're here to help. Our maternity, parental and adoption benefits are available to all salaried and full-time hourly associates who have worked at Walmart for at least 12 months.
HOW IT WORKS
Maternity: The enhanced maternity benefit supports birth moms with up to 10 weeks of protected paid time away from work.

Birth mothers can take up to 10 weeks of protected paid maternity leave.
They'll receive 100% of their pay, based on their average weekly wages.
They can use the new parental benefit (see below) for an additional six weeks, for a total of 16 weeks of protected paid leave for birth mothers.

Parental: The parental benefit supports associates who become a parent through a birth, adoption or foster-care placement, with up to six weeks of protected paid time away from work. It's available to associates in all states, including California, Oregon and other paid parental leave states.

The parental benefit is for new legal parents, guardians and foster parents only.
New parents can take up to six weeks of protected paid parental leave.
The associate's time away needs to be continuous, meaning they take it all at once.
The associate can use their parental benefit at any point in the 12 months following the date they became a new parent through a birth, adoption or foster-care placement.
Salaried associates may also be able to use the two-week family care pay program to cover the time they care for a spouse or dependent who has an eligible medical condition.
Associates receive 100% of their pay, based on their average weekly wages.

Adoption: This benefit pays associates back, up to $5,000, for expenses related to adopting a new family member. There's an annual maximum of $10,000 and a lifetime maximum of $20,000 per associate. Qualified expenses include, but are not limited to:

Application fees, agency and placement fees, legal fees and court costs
Home suitability studies
Immigration, immunization and translation fees
Transportation, meals and lodging
Parent, child and family adoption counseling

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Walmart has a long history of providing comprehensive health care and benefits to our associates, and we're proud of the quality plans we offer, which are among the best in the retail industry. We believe that when associates have stability in areas like health care, maternity and parental leave, paid time off and retirement planning, they're better able to bring their best selves to work.

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1. Walmart is now offering free two-day shipping, via its no-frills Shipping Pass service. Members who pay the $49 annual fee get the free shipping with no minimum purchases.

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Free Shipping : Enjoy Free 2-Day Shipping on Qualified Items - Walmart

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Walmart's free two-day shipping is available on the items customers shop the most, including household essentials such as baby necessities, pet products, food, like cereal and peanut butter, cleaning supplies and beauty favorites, as well as top electronics and toys.