Walmart Raising The Minimum Wage Essay

Wal-Mart excels in customer service; and the wages provided to their employees is beyond just minimum wage. “Wal-Mart’s success is the direct result of the dedication of its associates, and they reward their hard work with benefits that work for them. Their benefits include more than medical coverage and a competitive pay package: They offer associates retirement savings plans, pharmacy benefits, the opportunity to share in bonuses and valuable discounts at their stores (walmartstores.com, n.d).”

According to Raj Patel (2010), Wal-Mart employs “2.1 million greeters, stock clerks, and logistics officers working at its 8,416 stores ... [and] ranks among the largest employers worldwide--only China's army has more people on its payroll.” (para. 1). That is 2.1 million people who chose to work for the company, who were employed despite whatever setbacks there were holding them back from a “real” job. While Wal-Mart is definitely not the dream job, it is better than no job, and in fact does not pay that much below the retail average of $11.86/hour (EAE Alberta, 2011, p. 4). In this economy, it is unrealistic to believe that any retail job will lead a new fancy car every year, or pay much further than the necessities. The high cost of living with a low minimum wage goes beyond Wal-Mart’s business structure. However, it is a job that is helpful in employing students who need to pay for their education, and in assisting in immigrants making money when they first move to North America. It employs those hard to employ people and gives them the experience needed to move on to a better job with higher pay. Also missed in Parmar’s article is the fact that when employing two million people, there is a much higher chance of the company having an issue with employees. Due to its immense amount of employees, it is 5,500% more likely that a bad event will happen at Wal-Mart as opposed to smaller companies such

Please read Barbara Ehrenreich's recent book, Nickel and Dimed. In her brilliant book she reveals the misery of working for a big box retailer and the impossibility of living in America on poverty wages. She spent time working at Wal-Mart in St. Paul, Minnesota and struggled to survive. Read her account of the anti-union propaganda that Wal-Mart espouses. Wal-Mart is no friend to the working poor.

After the protest in New York City, the issue of raising the minimum wage has come up once again. Seattle is spearheading this cause with a proposal of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. This will help minimum wage workers a great deal by increasing their income. However, there are concern that this move could hurt certain businesses, which can lead to higher unemployment and contraction of the economy. The ethical issue surfaced as this will benefit some at the expense of other.

Since 2008, McDonald’s and Walmart corporations have paid their employees’ by the same federal minimum wage amount of $7. 25 per hour (Friedman, 2015). Not until recently, news stations have reported that most McDonalds and Walmart employees live below the poverty line. In fact, McDonalds has started their own McResource Line to give their employees advice on how to provide for their families while living on a minimum wage budget. Soon after, the company renounced their website after the backlash it caused from the media. Therefore, McDonalds and Walmart decided to raise their minimum wage to $9 an hour (Gasparro and Morath, 2015; Friedman, 2015). After researching, I believe large corporations such as McDonalds and Walmart should have to pay living wages, and it is extremely unethical for these

It’s hard to talk about minimum wage without somebody saying that raising it will ruin the economy, but this is a myth, raising the minimum wage would benefit millions of American workers. according to a

Worstall believes that if Wal-Mart raised its wages then about 700,000 Wal-Mart employees would lose their jobs. Wal-Mart currently employs 1.2 million people nationwide; imagine firing more than half of their employees.

It seems only logical that providing the poorest segment of society with more pay for their work will improve their situation and give them the working capital they need to work their way out of poverty. With each incremental increase those who are directly affected by the increase will instantly have more money to help them purchase more good and services to improve their living conditions. Additionally increasing the minimum wage would likely have a positive effect on the overall economy as workers immediately increase their consumption possibly increasing GDP and the resulting employment

⭐The minimum wage in the US is $7.25 an hour, and in more than 25 states it is even higher! This is a big problem and even though some think that raising the minimum wage is good economics, it actually would ruin the economy and many of the US citizens’ lives. This is because increasing the minimum wage would have negative effects like food price increases, loss of job opportunities, and less incentive for a higher education.

“If the minimum wage were raised to $10.10 an hour, as President Obama has proposed, 38 percent of employers who currently pay employees minimum wage say that they would have to let some employees go to cover the cost. Among the same group, 54 percent say they would reduce hiring, and 65 percent say they would raise prices on their goods and services” (Kast).

For having "2.3 million associates around the world – 1.5 million in the U.S. alone," (corporate.walmart.com), Walmart cannot simply raise employee wages even if they wanted to. That is why it took Walmart quite some time to finally lift "the base wage to $9/hour in 2015 to $10/hour in February" (Bowman) just last year. Other than wages, let 's talk about the health care programs.

Raising the minimum wage can hurt many people in different aspects of business. Increasing the minimum wage will cause businesses to lay off employees. Matt Zwolinski stated “By increasing the cost of labor, they reduce the demand for it” (3). This essentially means that those who are increasing the minimum wage are also creating unemployment. The increase in lay offs causes the unemployment rate to skyrocket (“Should” 1). Joseph Sabia and Richard Burkhauser estimated that about 1.3 million jobs would be eliminated if the federal minimum wage was increased to $9.50 per hour (“Four” 1). Raising the minimum wage would cause many small, local shops to close their doors. Even many big fast food companies would have to close their doors because they would not be able to pay their employees (“Should” 2). Seattle, being the first US city to raise the minimum wage, has received a lot of attention. A study found that there were many jobs lost due to this wage

Walmart’s mission is to keep “everyday prices low” meaning labor costs must be kept at the lowest possible level. Walmart has always made every effort in keeping unions out of its company. The National Labor Relations Board has filed numerous complaints against Walmart. If a division decided to strike, Walmart would typically just fire the employees.

A portion of jobs affected by a minimum wage hike will inevitably go to robots instead of humans. Instead of hiring workers, businesses will invest in technology that is capable of doing tasks that would otherwise be done by human workers, such as cashiering at fast food restaurants and other establishments. In the long run, businesses that invest in technology sophisticated enough to perform these types of jobs will face lower costs than hiring actual workers. This is primarily because they will not have to be concerned about inputs such as wages and benefits given to workers and filing payroll taxes.

Although, if people keep agreeing to work for minimum wage then these higher wages will never be set because the economic marketplace knows that it can increase its profit margin by paying workers less which is what it will always try to do. Looking at the article, it can be seen that if Wal-Mart were to raise there minimum wage to the acceptable amount of twelve dollars ($12.00) an hour, the corporation would take a $3.21 billion dollar hit to their checkbooks. Even if immigrants were the ones who were always sweeping the market to its lowest paying profit margin they are still providing a benefit to corporations which is therefore providing a benefit to everyone who interacts with that corporation and should it be a corporation like that of Wal-Mart a plethora of people are receiving the benefits while much fewer are being harmed.