By Wednesday, the progressive think tank Demos had published a report (PDF) arguing that Walmart could afford to pay its workers an additional $5.83 an hour—to reach the modest goal of the equivalent of $25,000 a year for a full-time employee—by making one change: ending the company’s share-buyback program. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Walmart has bought back about $36 billion in stock in its four previous fiscal years, and in June the company announced a fresh $15 billion share-repurchasing program at its annual shareholder meeting. One consequence of the buybacks: The Walton family now owns slightly more than 50 percent of the company.
The Demos report,”A Higher Wage is Possible: How Walmart Can Invest in Its Workforce Without Costing Customers a Dime,” says that curtailing the buybacks would not harm the company’s competitiveness or raise prices for consumers. “In fact, some retail analysts have argued that by providing a substantial investment in the company’s front-line workforce, higher pay could be expected to improve employee productivity and morale while reducing Walmart’s expenses related to employee turnover,” Catherine Ruetschlin and Amy Traub wrote. (And if Walmart employees were making more, chances are they’d be spending more at Walmart.) The report also notes that other retailers pay less than living wages. Walmart, though, as the biggest retailer, sets the standards and faces the most scrutiny.
When I asked Walmart to respond to the report, a second spokesperson, Kory Lundberg, wrote in an e-mail: “We are proud of the opportunities we provide our associates and their families with good and jobs and benefits and the opportunity to grow a career and go as far as your hard work and talents will take you.” He also pointed out that Demos is funded (PDF), in part, by several unions.
He didn’t challenge Demos’s math.
