On January 12, Walmart announced the closing of 63 of its Sam’s Club stores across 32 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Closures varied from taking effect immediately to being gradually implemented over the next few weeks.

The corporation’s justified this action in that it would help them free up financial resources in order to give current employees better benefits and elevate their minimum wage from 10 to 11 dollars. Although this sounds like a step in the right direction for the corporation initially, after analyzing the impact of this policy it becomes unclear whether or not Walmart is truly doing a service to their employees.

According to Business Insider, each Sam’s Club franchise employs an average of 160 employees. Assuming this is true, Walmart will lay off a total of over 10,000 workers. Glassdoor states that the average Sam’s Club employee earns $29,000 over the course of a year with the company, not including benefits such as healthcare, which amounts to $290 million in wages per year freed up by the store closings.

Assuming a 40 hour work week and two weeks of vacation per year, however, their minimum wage hike would benefit remaining employees an average of 2,080 dollars per year which would only marginally increase their standard of living. In terms of general economic impact, it is ludicrous to claim that raising average employee pay less than ten percent would be more beneficial to the workforce than supporting ten thousand additional workers.

However, the negative economic impact of these layoffs are not the only issue with Walmart’s decision to close so many Sam’s Club franchises. Walmart’s announcement of this decision to employees the same day it takes effect caught them totally off guard and ultimately left them without a way to support themselves.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, over ninety percent of independent, low wage workers reside in a rented property. As a result of this, Walmart has deprived thousands of workers of a way to pay their monthly rent because of the lack of notice they were given.The lack of notice makes it difficult for employees arrange a  new job or another stream of income because the closings were sprung upon them so quickly, and this is a deeply unfair practice by Walmart.

Although the idea of raising the minimum wage is theoretically positive for low wage workers, as well as a reliable way to promote the public image of a company, in this case it led to detrimental impacts for low wage workers at Walmart.

These implications for low wage workers in general seem severe, the impact hits close to home for Park residents especially; the St. Louis Park location of Sam’s Club will close completely on Jan. 26th. According to the Minneapolis and St. Paul Business Journal, that amounts to over 150 members of our community left without a reliable stream of income, many of whom have families to support and rent to pay. The Walmart Corporations despicable actions are not only harmful in principle, but have negatively impacted the community of St. Louis Park in a sizable way.