walmart good for america

Study the advantages and disadvantages of allowing a major chain store into their community

These online lesson plans will allow students to:

Students will explore the different approaches to outsourcing advocated by the Democratic and Republican political parties in the 2004 campaign.

Students will use information from the film and/or additional research to create a persuasive letter, poem or cartoon that illustrates their viewpoint.

» Additional Lesson Ideas:

Researching the costs and benefits of outsourcing

Completing a viewer's guide for the documentary

Students will examine the costs and benefits of outsourcing for consumers, manufacturers, retailers and workers in the United States by:

A list of questions for students to discuss after viewing "Is Wal-Mart Good For America?"

In 2003, the United States had a $120 billion trade deficit with China, and it is expected to be even higher in 2004.

The United States is exporting raw materials to Third World countries and importing their manufactured products, which is a reversal of former economic relations.

TCL, a Chinese company, is now the largest producer of televisions in the world, and almost all of their U.S. exports go to Wal-Mart.

China is becoming the biggest producer of high-tech products in the world.

Wal-Mart has approximately 6,000 global suppliers; 80 percent of these are from China.

A basic flaw in the United States-China trade relationship is that we can afford to buy Chinese products, but they cannot afford to buy ours.

Global retailers are superceding manufacturers in making decisions about product quality, type and price.

"Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" provides a provocative examination of the impact Wal-Mart has had on the U.S. economy. The documentary highlights the changing relationship between manufacturers and the so-called "big-box" retailers, exemplified by Wal-Mart, that has contributed to the bankruptcy of some American businesses and a growing unemployment rate. While Wal-Mart supporters tout the advantages of one-stop, low-cost shopping, others are alarmed at both the outsourcing that has made these low prices possible and how large retailers affect smaller, local businesses. FRONTLINE examines the winners and the losers as it documents how:

For classes in Social Studies, American Government, Current Events and Economics;

FRONTLINE offers two starkly contrasting images: one of Circleville, Ohio, where the local TV manufacturing plant has closed down; the other -- a sea of high rises in the South China boomtown of Shenzhen. The connection between American job losses and soaring Chinese exports? Wal-Mart. For Wal-Mart, China has become the cheapest, most reliable production platform in the world, the source of up to $25 billion in annual imports that help the company deliver everyday low prices to 100 million customers a week. But while some economists credit Wal-Mart's single-minded focus on low costs with helping contain U.S. inflation, others charge that the company is the main force driving the massive overseas shift to China in the production of American consumer goods, resulting in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and a lower standard of living here at home.

Teachers Guide - Is Wal-Mart Good For America? | Teacher Center | FRONTLINE | PBS