Econ Comments & Analysis
Market Watch | The Wal-Mart pay rise may not even show up in jobs report
The country’s largest private-sector employer is lifting wages for 500,000 employees. But it still may not show up in the nation’s economic reports.
TIME | This Chart Shows What Walmart’s Pay Raises Mean for the Minimum Wage
In a move set to reignite the debate over increasing the federal minimum wage, Walmart said Thursday it’s giving half a million of its employees a raise.
Forbes | If We Knew Why WalMart Raised Wages Then We Could Decide Upon The Minimum Wage
Yesterday Walmart rather shocked everyone by announcing that wages would rise to a minimum of $9 an hour this year and to $10 an hour for those who have finished their training next. This will mean pay raises for 500,000 of their staff and will cost the company, in the first round of effects, some $1 billion. What we’d really like to know though is precisely why Walmart did this. For if we knew the answer to that then we could make up our minds on the closely related point of the minimum wage. One possible reason for this wage rise means we are left just as we are on the minimum wage. The other major serious reason means that we can leave the minimum wage pretty much alone: or, another way of looking at the same point, it won’t matter very much if we do raise it.
Blogs
Wall Street Journal | What Wal-Mart’s Pay Raise May Mean For Other Workers
The pledge by the nation’s largest private employer to hand raises to 500,000 workers amps up pressure on other low-wage employers that are already seeing labor costs climb in a tightening labor market.
