Wal-Mart a good corporate citizen?

That's really not what I've known for years, but they really claim they are, and made an ad out of it.

"It all began with a big dream in a small town, Sam Walton's dream," a narrator says as one ad starts with a black-and-white photo of Sam Walton and a grainy shot of Walton's first five-and-dime store in what is now the chain's headquarters town of Bentonville, Ark.

"Sam's dream. Your neighborhood Wal-Mart," the ad ends.

Both ads recite key points Wal-Mart has been making to reporters for months about its record, but the ads now take the arguments straight to the public.

The nation's largest private employer says it creates tens of thousands of jobs a year, offers employee health plans for as little as $23 a month, saves "the average working family" more than $2,300 a year through its low prices and is a major contributor to local charities with donations last year totaling more than $245 million.

In a news release about the ads, Wal-Mart said a survey of its employees nationwide last summer found 88 percent believe the company is a good corporate citizen and 81 percent would recommend a Wal-Mart job to a friend.

My first order approximation of how good a corporate citizen is is HRC's rating, which gave Wal-Mart 65 in 2006. I don't see it as too impressive, especially compared with othter companies in the same industry.