An analysis done by an economist for Bloomderg News shows that is Walmart raised their minimum wage and passed on the extra cost to the consumers, it would raise the price of a $16 dollar product by one cent.
The chair of the Labor Center at the University of California, Ken Jacobs says raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would add $200 million to the company’s annual labor cost. That number is just 0.06 percent of Walmart’s billions in annual sales, so passing that cost to customers would be pennies.
Although Walmart may not choose to distribute the cost in that way. “It’s likely that some share of that cost would be passed through, but it’s not likely to be one hundred percent,” says Jacobs.
An income raise to $10.10 per hour would provide 16.5 million employees in this country over $31 billion more in earnings. Companies like Walmart stand to benefit greatly when the country has more money to spend in their stores, so that penny per $16 may not be necessary.