A Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. report funded by Wal-Mart claims its

entry into the Southern California grocery business will produce a net increase in jobs, as benefits of its lower prices offset the downside of its lower wages....

Previous studies failed to account for consumer savings on groceries.

After Wal-Mart is firmly established in California, those savings would amount to $524 a year for the average household...adding up to annual savings of $668 million in the city of Los Angeles and $1.8 billion in Los Angeles County. If consumers spent all that money, it could create 17,300 jobs....

OK, but

Some economists questioned the findings of the LAEDC, a nonprofit organization funded by the business community.

"Among the working-poor families of Los Angeles, what would be gained from a small amount saved on household food costs if wages are declining and other costs, such as healthcare, keep rising? It seems like an empty proposition," said Patrick Burns, a senior researcher at Economic Roundtable in Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization that studies jobs and the local economy.

"In our research, we've found that L.A. County already suffers from an overabundance of low-wage jobs with few, if any, benefits, not to mention a disproportionate share of the nation's 'under the table' jobs," said Burns, who read the LAEDC study. "This is the wrong direction for the L.A. economy."

The Economic Roundtable leans to the left, judging by these links, and Patrick Burns says his

scholarly interests include: labor migration and the new international division of labor, the neo-liberal model of international development and its impacts upon the U.S. domestic economy, world cities & urban geography, environmental sustainability & justice, and the uneven geography of modern capitalism.

The phrases I italicize show his hostility to capitalism. Meanwhile, Ira Kalish, global director for Deloitte Research (OK, their research is for big bidness) says

the vast majority of people vote with their purses....The American and global consumer has internalized discounting as important to them....Many workers might make less money, but to the extent that millions of consumers pay less, they free up money to buy other stuff - making them and society in a sense wealthier.

There's still plenty of opposition, though.