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Walmart History Paper

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Wal-Mart History & Reason for Wage Increase
Wal-Mart was founded by Samuel Walton in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. Mr. Walton started his first 5&10 store on the downtown square of Bentonville, AR (Our History, 2016). The success of the 5&10 store led him to open up the first Wal-Mart. Today, Wal-Mart is the largest discount retailer in the world, earning over $485.6 billion in revenue in 2014 (Wahba, 2015). Wal-Mart employs over 1.3 million people domestically. Amongst the 1.3 million employees, half of the workers are part-time and the other half is full-time. On October 2012, Wal-Mart experienced its first strike, where workers were asking for more money, consistent number of work hours, and better treatment (HInes, 2012). Over the next three years, more employees would join the strikes in an effort to have their demands heard. On February 19, 2015, Wal-Mart President & CEO Doug McMillon announced that they would increase the pay of all current employees to $9.00 per hour and by February 2016 to $10.00 per hour (McMillon, 2015). I think the increase came because of supply and demand in the labor market place. Many retail employees are seeking companies that are willing to pay them more so it is in the interest of Wal-Mart to make the first move towards offering higher pay. I think more pressure …show more content…

This change would then require all employers to raise their minimum wage rather than focusing on Wal-Mart. According to the Economic Policy Institute, if the federal minimum wage were raised to $10.10 per hour, more than 1.7 million Americans workers would no longer need to participate in public assistance programs (Cooper, 2014). Studies from the EPS also showed that the government spends over $45 billion each year on people who earned less than $10.10 per hour participated in one or more of the following subsidized programs (Cooper,

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