Posted: Mar 26, 2013 2:56 pm
Loren Michael wrote:That said, you may be correct. Walmart supported a minimum wage hike a short while ago, suggesting that they could almost certainly pay more to their employees. I have no idea about the degree of that being passed on the the consumer though.
Walmart will always pay the least it can get away with to its workers. That is, it will only raise the amount of money it pays to the bottom tier of employees if it is - and therefore its competitors are - required to do so. It's market share is such, however, that a minimum wage hike would hurt its competitors worse than it. Hence support for minimum wage hike: Walmart can afford it, its direct competitors can't.