12/28/2024

Why Wal-Mart’s Shrinking Profit Should Scare Liberals

Wal-Mart’s second profit warning in two months should be a wake-up call for the political left. If America’s largest private employer is struggling with its own pay increases, how will other businesses cope with even larger minimum-wage hikes?

Long the scourge of progressives for its relatively low wages, Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) announced early this year that it would unilaterally boost its own base wage, first to $9 an hour this past April and to $10 by February 2016.

“People have known that $10 was coming for a while,” Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday. “This news today was just we quantified it for everybody.”

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