The promise of Walmart Inc. raising his average hourly wage above $ 15 comes in the midst of a debate in Washington over whether the federal minimum wage should be more than doubled.
The big-box retailer’s goal is politically significant because it is in line with President Biden’s proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $ 15 an hour from the $ 7.25 an hour in effect for 11 years. It also comes from the country’s largest private employer, with stores in various labor markets across the country.
But Walmart’s announcement Thursday doesn’t approve Mr. Biden’s plan, which is part of a $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief proposal from Democrats in Congress expected to be passed through the House later this month. adopted. The company supports a higher federal minimum wage, but not $ 15 an hour. While it plans to increase wages for 425,000 hourly workers from an average of more than $ 14 by January 2020, the minimum starting wage would remain at $ 11 an hour.
Still, the company’s move could play a role in both sides of the federal minimum wage debate.
Democrats backing Mr Biden’s pay plan may argue that Walmart’s pay increases are proof that employers can afford pay increases despite the pandemic’s economic disruption, economists and analysts say. Republicans opposed to a doubling of the federal wage floor will likely see it as an example of effective free market forces, arguing that the government doesn’t need to intervene.