Walmart currently does not support raising the federal minimum wage. However, considering the company's lackluster performance over the past few months, perhaps it's time to take a stand.
On Thursday morning, the retailing giant announced a a 21 percent drop in profits in the last three months of the year, which covers the crucial holiday season. Some of the drop had to do with weather -- more than 200 Walmart stores had to close some time over the last few months because of winter storms. However, much of the decline was the result of a pull back by shoppers pinched by recent federal benefits cuts, officials said on an earnings call Thursday. [...]
The chart below from the CBO shows that a $10.10 minimum wage would boost the incomes of poor Americans.
And when pinched Americans get money, they’re likely to spend it almost immediately at places like Walmart. "Walmart caters to workers on a budget and they can expect that if those workers get an increase, they will spend the money in their stores," Catherine Ruetschlin, a policy analyst at Demos, told HuffPost in September. "These low-wage workers are the real job creators in the economy; they’re the people that go out and spend.”
