Wal-Mart Blocked: Do Chicago Democrats Want African-Americans to Pay Higher Prices and have Higher Unemployment?

The Chicago Defender reports:

Residents in the business-starved and food- deserted Pullman community on the Far South Side may get a huge development along the Bishop Ford Expressway, complete with two big box retailers, a hotel, a school and new affordable homes, among other things, if all goes well in City Council next month.


But, there’s one caveat, according to the area’s Alderman Anthony Beale (9th): Walmart.


The Benton, Arkansas-based discount retail giant has struggled to get more stores in Chicago after opening the city’s first Walmart on the West Side in 2006. The proposed “big box” ordinance a year later halted its efforts.


The union-backed measure required all businesses with more than $1 billion in annual sales and stores with more than 90,000-square-feet to pay a minimum wage of at least $11 per hour, $13 per hour with benefits.

The council passed the ordinance. Mayor Richard M. Daley vetoed it.

Since Wal-Mart is the largest private sector employer of African-Americans, you have to wonder whether racism is involved.The Defender reminds us that Alderman Ed Burke is in charge of the Wal-Mart decision.