EDITORIAL: Wal-Mart withdrawal: Neighborhoods pay for costly mandates

Proponents of minimum wage increases like to tell us that wage boosts are crucial for the nation's working poor, but evidence continues to mount that they actually harm those they are supposed to help. Consider the recent news about Wal-Mart.

The retail giant is closing 269 stores across the globe, with 154 shuttering in the United States, including the North Las Vegas Wal-Mart Supercenter on Nellis Boulevard. In addition to the announced closures, however, the company also has scrapped plans to open two stores in the nation's capital. While Wal-Mart said publicly that unexpectedly high building and labor costs were keeping the stores from being built, The Washington Post reported that company officials told D.C-area leaders during a closed-door meeting that the District's rising minimum wage was chiefly to blame.

The sudden Nellis Boulevard closure is part of the company's shift toward e-commerce, as well as renewed focus on bolstering its Supercenters and smaller Neighborhood Markets. Not surprisingly, the closure is a major disappointment for many Nellis Air Force Base families and other lower-income families who live nearby. The store's departure puts many of its customers in a bind, taking away one of the only nearby and affordable options for groceries, prescriptions and retail items.

As bad as the closure is for cash-strapped shoppers, however, the loss of jobs at the closing locations — as well as at the stores that won't be built — is even worse.

According to to The Washington Post report, Wal-Mart representatives told D.C. officials that the District's $11.50 minimum wage, as well as a proposed ballot measure that would raise the wage to $15 an hour, were key factors in the decision not to add stores there. (Nevadans could see a ballot question this November to gradually raise the minimum wage to $13 by 2024.) Company officials also had issues with a legislative proposal that would require D.C. employers to contribute financially to a fund for family and medical leave for employees, and another initiative that would call for a minimum amount of hours for hourly workers.

"How are we going to run the three stores we have, let alone build two more?" company officials reportedly asked local officials.

Not only would the planned D.C. stores have been built in "food deserts" — areas with few or no grocery stores — they would have created hundreds of jobs for people who really need them.

Wal-Mart is willing to make the leap into high-need areas. But if cities continue to impose higher minimum wages and a slew of other costly regulations on businesses, those businesses and the jobs they provide won't come. And the people hit hardest are those who live in those areas, who will have fewer options for affordable shopping and fewer job opportunities. That doesn't help working families.