Walmart’s Salary Hike Sets New Standards for Low-Wage Worker Compensation

I’ve lambasted large corporations that don’t pay a livable wage and provided alternatives such as retailers/restaurants that do. Americans should never settle for pay of less than $10 an hour.

Evidently, Walmart now agrees, and I would like to offer them my thanks.

Walmart recently announced a pay increase that will raise associate pay rates to at least $9 per hour in April and $10 in 2020.

Concerns have been voiced over their motives (fear of unionization, employee protests and getting ahead of an inevitable federal minimum wage increase have all been discussed as potential reasons), yet I give Walmart credit for taking proactive steps that are ultimately good news for ALL low wage workers – not only Walmart employees.

Walmart wage increaseWalmart is by far the largest private employer in the US with over 2.3 million workers, and this will raise incomes for approximately 500,000 of them – setting a new median low bar for retail and restaurant workers in terms of earnings potential.

Imagine this: Imagine standing before a 150 degree Fahrenheit deep-fryer at McDonald’s across the street, with hot grease flying at your eyes or breaking your back unloading boxes at Target several big box stores away and earning only the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour; why wouldn’t you at least apply to Walmart and receive an increase of 38%?!?

Walmart setting the example by raising its low bar will likely cause other companies to follow, in order to prevent mass deflection or turnover of employees.