WAL*MART giving 500k employees a raise

Bad news for the economy: Workers making more money. Nothing good can come of that.

$10/hour starting salary by 2016

You can probably make more money than that selling bottles of ice water on an overhead walkway in Vegas.


Rick

That's fantastic. It proves we don't need to legislate an increase in the minimum wage. If you want your $10 an hour so bad, quit you're fast food job, go work at Wal-Mart and you're golden.

You may be right. Pressure from the community, shaming by a sitting president, and threats of unionization can carry a great deal of leverage by themselves.

Of course, this also proves that paying workers more does not make your company uncompetitive and forces retail prices to go up. You may have heard that argument somewhere before.

This was part of a comprehensive change that included hiring, training, compensation and scheduling. It's an attempt to improve their labor force, not a response to pressure or shaming by a sitting president.

That's what happens when you have a free market for labor. Companies who want better employees pay them more. The best part is other retailers may have to follow suit unless they want the dregs of Wal-Marts rejects....and it doesn't require forcing these companies to do anything except compete for the best employees.

Wage increases are good when dictated by "the market". Wage increase mandated by the government are terrible.

What! PJ's not bitching they should be paying them $21 an hour????

While I personally can't stand WM, I applaud their decision to hike wages. I'd venture to guess some other mega employers to follow suit(McD's,et al) to keep decent employees.

There are three possible outcomes from the raises Wal Mart is granting :
1. Prices will increase
2. Employees will be laid off
3. Earnings per share will be decreased
I'm betting on 1 and 2 and if that is what happens , the net effect is hardly all that beneficial in total. Bob

I have been a Walmart hater for years only been in one about 10 times. Three of those times to take oil and oil filters to be recycled.
This is really a shot at weak competitors ( Sear, KMart, JC Penny) If you pay more so will other stores have to but some weak ones can not afford to and will go out of business.
So more business for Wally World.