Wiltshire arrives at similar results: Workers in counties where a Walmart opened experienced a greater decline in earnings than they made up for with cost savings, leaving them worse off overall. Even more interesting, he finds that the losses weren't limited to workers in the retail industry; they affected basically every sector from manufacturing

poverty increases by about 8 percent in places where a Walmart opens relative to places without one even when factoring in the most optimistic cost-savings scenarios.