The Poor Are the Losers in New York's War on Walmart

If budget-cutters in Washington decided to eliminate food stamps for New Yorkers, city politicians would be denouncing the cruelty of the “Republican war on the poor.” Yet Mayor de Blasio and the City Council are inflicting the same sort of pain on low-income New Yorkers by denying them access to one of the nation’s most effective anti-poverty programs: Walmart.

When he was mayor, Michael Bloomberg supported Walmart’s efforts to open a store in New York, but the company faced unremitting resistance from unions and elected officials, and it gave up the fight once de Blasio moved into Gracie Mansion.

“I have been adamant that I don’t think Walmart — the company, the stores — belong in New York City,” de Blasio said.

Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama.

In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart, by driving down prices, saved the typical American family more than $2,300 annually. That was about the same amount that a family on food stamps then received from the federal government.

How could any progressive with a conscience oppose an organization that confers such benefits? How could de Blasio and the council effectively take....

Read the entire piece here at the New York Post

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John Tierney is a contributing editor at City Journal. Follow him on Twitter here.

This piece originally appeared in New York Post