Nader: Walmart and a higher minimum wage--shoppers need more income
National Jobs for All Coalition
I think Walmart will follow businesses like Costco, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce, and the booming Busboys and Poets restaurants in supporting a higher minimum wage. Remember Walmart executives are all about the numbers and how they can manipulate them to their own benefit. February’s retail sales, writes Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes “was a rotten month for the Bentonville Giants.” Internal emails leaked from Walmart expressed concern about the spending level of the low to middle-income shoppers who are the dollar source for the company.
“Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?” bewailed Cameron Geiger, Walmart senior vice-president. Calmer colleagues attributed the sales slump to the restoration of the social security payroll tax, delayed tax refunds and higher gasoline prices.
What Walmart’s bosses are coming to realize, however, is that a minimum wage above $10 per hour would lift the income of about 30 million workers, including Walmart employees, who would spend some of that extra cash at Walmart stores.
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National Jobs for All Coalition
http://www.njfac.org/