U.S. President Barack Obama said last week that he would sign an executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 an hour starting in next year. Reuters reports that this order applies to new contracts and replacements for expiring contracts. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to Bloomberg News, is the largest private employer in the U.S.
Bloomberg News reported that Wal-Mart is weighing the Impact of increasing the minimum wage. The company spokesman, David Tovar, was reported to have stated in a phone interview, “Wal-Mart is weighing the impact of additional payroll costs against possibly attracting more consumer dollars at its stores.”
According to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2013, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., branded as Walmart, is the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is also the largest retailer in the world. Walmart is a family-owned business. The company is controlled by the Walton family, who own over 50 percent of Walmart.
The world’s second largest public corporation, Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar told The Huffington Post, “We are not at all considering this,” after Bloomberg News published the story. Walmart is denying the Bloomberg report that said it is considering supporting the increase in the minimum wage, according to the Huffington Post.
Wal-Mart has over 11,000 stores in 27 countries, under 55 different names.
Reuters has reported that Wal-Mart also announced the multinational retail corporation would increase its annual dividend from $0.29 to $1.88 per share for fiscal 2014, an 18% increase over last year. Bloomberg also reported that Tovar compared the internal analysis to the company’s deliberations over last year’s cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known also as food stamps.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report saying that while raising the minimum wage could wipe out as many as 500,000 jobs, it also could boost the incomes of 16.5 million low-wage workers in an average week. For information about employment opportunities with Wal-Mart readers can click here.
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