Much of the content on this website was assembled in the course of preparing our 2004 report Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never-Ending Growth. It was funded in part by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Chapter II of that report contains descriptions of the various kinds of subsidies our research covered. More detailed explanations of the different kinds of subsidies can be found in the research guide on the Good Jobs First website

In early 2007 we collected information on new subsidy deals that had been announced since the publication of our 2004 report. We combined the old and new subsidy information with data that has been disclosed by about two dozen states on the employers with the largest number of workers participating in taxpayer-funded healthcare programs such as Medicaid. Good Jobs First had been tracking those disclosures since 2005 and posting a summary on our website.

Here is a selected list of additional resources relating to Wal-Mart, economic development subsidies and state and local taxes: 

• Wake-Up Wal-Mart
• Wal-Mart Watch
• Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now
• Wal-Mart Workers Unite

Anthony Bianco. The Bully of Bentonville: How the High Cost of Wal-Mart’s Everyday Low Prices is Hurting America. New York: Currency Doubleday, 2006.

John Dicker. The United States of Wal-Mart. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2005.

Liza Featherstone. Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

Charles Fishman. The Wal-Mart Effect. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.

Greg LeRoy. The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005.

Nelson Lichtenstein, ed. Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First Century Capitalism. New York: New Press, 2006.

Stacy Mitchell. Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Mitchell is with the Institute for Local Self Reliance, which has two websites on big-box issues: the New Rules Project and the Big Box Toolkit.

Al Norman. Slam-Dunking Wal-Mart. Atlantic City, NJ: Raphel Marketing, 1999. Norman runs an organization called Sprawl-Busters

Al Norman. The Case Against Wal-Mart. Atlantic City, NJ: Raphel Marketing, 2004.

Bob Ortega. In Sam We Trust. New York: Times Business, 1998.

Bill Quinn. How Wal-Mart is Destroying America. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2000.

Greg Spotts. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. New York: Disinformation Co., 2005.

Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox. The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2006.

Sam Walton. Sam Walton: Made in America . New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Philip Mattera and Anna Purinton. Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never-Ending Growth (Good Jobs First, 2004) <http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/wmtstudy.pdf> .

Zach Schiller. Wal-Mart Special: Ohio Jobs Tax Credits to America ’s Richest Retailer (Policy Matters Ohio, 2002) <http://www.policymattersohio.org/walmartintro.htm> .

David Karjanen and Murtaza Baxamusa. Subsidizing Wal-Mart: A Case Study of the College Grove Redevelopment Project (Center on Policy Initiatives, 2003). <http://www.onlinecpi.org/article.php?list=type&type=75> .

David Sedore, “Wal-Mart Government Perks Raise Questions,” Palm Beach Post, August 31, 2003.

Arindrajit Dube and Ken Jacobs. Hidden Cost of Wal-Mart Jobs: Use of Safety Net Programs by Wal-Mart Workers in California (UC Berkeley Labor Center, 2004) <http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/retail/walmart.pdf>.

• Center for Public Policy Priorities (Texas)
• Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (Illinois)
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Center on Policy Initiatives (San Diego)
• East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy-EBASE
• Fiscal Policy Institute (New York)
• Front Range Economic Strategy Center (Colorado)
• Good Jobs First
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
• Keystone Research Center (Pennsylvania)
• Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy
• New Jersey Policy Perspective
• North Carolina Justice Center
• Oregon Center for Public Policy
• Partnership for Working Families
• Policy Matters Ohio

For links to more organizations and materials on accountable development state fiscal policy and smart growth, see the Resources section of the Good Jobs First website

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