Leftists move to kill Walmart job-creation project

"There are few mom-and-pop stores in this blighted area. Yet for the past six years, Wal-Mart and its allies have fought opponents who charge that such "big box" stores exploit workers, depress wages and drive out community businesses. They want to force Wal-Mart to agree to pay what liberal activists call a "living wage," forgetting that in such depressed areas zero is not a living wage. The average wage for nonmanagers at Chicago's single existing Wal-Mart is $11.30 an hour. When that store opened, nearly 16,000 people — 98 percent of them from the neighborhood — applied for its 450 jobs."

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