Walmart sales still surging, but a chill may be on the way

Walmart swung to a loss in the 80% jump in the previous The company said it’s going is strong, and we’re making the fourth quarter as the sale quarter, and it was the slowest to invest nearly $14 billion to it even stronger with targeted In this fi le photo, a of its Japan and United King- growth since the beginning of increase automation and im- investments to accelerate Walmart store sign is dom divisions weighed on its the pandemic. prove its distribution network. It growth.” visible from Route 28 in performance. And on Thursday the com- also said Thursday that it’s rais- Walmart Inc. lost $2.09 bil- Derry, New Hampshire. Sales surged by 7.4% in the pany said that it expects over- ing it’s average hourly wage to lion, or 74 cents per share, (AP) period that includes the critical all sales to moderate this year. more than $15 per hour. compared with last year’s holiday shopping season and Shares dipped 5% before the “Change in retail acceler- $4.14 billion profi t during the sales at stores opened at least opening bell. ated in 2020, “said CEO Doug fourth quarter, or $1.45 per a year rose 8.6%, up from Walmart has pushed hard McMillon. ”The capabilities share. Net revenue reached 6.4% in the previous quarter. into fast and convenient deliv- we’ve built in previous years $150.98 billion compared with However, while online sales ery during the pandemic and it put us ahead, and we’re going $140.6 billion in the year ago rose 69%, that was down from signaled that will not slowdown. to stay ahead. Our business period. (AP) Business PPluslus Fate of Biden’s minimum wage proposal remains hazy Biden’s $15 wage proposal: Job killer or a boon for workers?

years, Biden’s plan would enter uncharted territory. Feroli and Silver of JPMorgan note that most minimum wage increases amount to 5% to 15%. A doubling of the minimum, as Biden proposes, could potentially exert a more harmful effect on jobs than research has suggested. Dube concedes that Biden runs the risk of raising the minimum wage too high, too fast. Yet he argues that the gradual phase-in would allow policy- makers to monitor how the job market is reacting - and to delay further scheduled wage increases if employ- ers responded to their higher costs by cutting jobs. At a town hall Tuesday night in Milwaukee, Biden seemed to signal a willingness to settle for a more modest increase in the federal minimum wage. “I do support a $15 minimum wage,” the president said, while add- ing, “but that’s a debatable issue.” “So let’s say you said you’re going to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour between now and the year 2025 to $12 an hour, to $13 an hour,” Biden said. “You double some- one’s pay, and the impact on business would be absolutely diminished.” On Wednesday, the White House said Biden wasn’t suggesting that he would accept a fi nal minimum wage of $12 or $13 an hour by 2025 but rather was stressing that a gradual phase-in to $15 an hour would reduce the impact on businesses. Critics argue that now isn’t the time for a hefty wage increase. Many of the businesses most likely to pay the minimum - restaurants, hotels, movie theaters - have been hardest hit by the pandemic and the lockdowns and other steps meant to contain it. Consider Marshall’s Detroit restaurant, Ivy Kitchen + Cocktails, already devastated by the coronavirus. Revenue is down 85%. She fears that higher labor costs could deliver the Cristian Cardona, sitting on a car hood (center), an employee at a McDonald’s, attends a rally for a $15 an hour minimum wage, Feb 16, 2021, in Orlando, Florida. (Inset): In this fi le photo, Presi- fi nal blow. dent Joe Biden signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Offi ce of the White House in Washington. Biden campaigned on raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour and attached “We’re not making money; 2020 a proposal doing just that to the $1.9 trillion coronavirus pandemic relief bill. (AP) was a complete loss,” Marshall said. “To impose such a wage increase on By Paul Wiseman million jobs. The reasoning is that now. Twenty-nine states and Washing- So when New Jersey raised its mini- us right now would not be a good idea, employers would cut jobs to make up ton, D.C., have already adopted mini- mum wage in 1992 - and neighbor- and a lot of us would just shut down .. resident Joe Biden’s effort to raise for their higher labor costs. mum wages above the federal $7.25. ing Pennsylvania did not - Card and Our doors are barely open.’’ Pthe federal minimum wage to $15 The fate of Biden’s minimum wage The United States lags behind other Krueger saw a real-world experiment Then again, the pandemic has also an hour could provide a welcome proposal remains hazy. Facing resist- developed countries in the size of its in the making. Would New Jersey lose exposed how diffi cult life is at the bot- opportunity for someone like Cristian ance in Congress, the president has ac- minimum wage. In 2018, the U.S. min- low wage jobs, as classical economics tom of the income ladder. In Orlando, Cardona, a 21-year-old fast food work- knowledged that he will likely have to imum amounted to 33% of the nation’s had taught? Cardona makes $11 an hour as a er. Cardona would love to earn enough omit the measure from the $1.9 trillion median earnings - dead-last among The two economists surveyed 410 manager at a McDonald’s. Unable to to afford to move out of his parents’ COVID-19 fi nancial relief package he 31 countries in the Organization for fast-food restaurants in both states. afford a place of his own, he lives with house in Orlando, Florida, and maybe is proposing and re-introduce it later as Economic Cooperation and Develop- Their surprising discovery: The his parents, chipping in for grocer- scrape together money for college. a separate bill. ment. By contrast, Canada’s minimum restaurants in New Jersey, despite the ies and help on the electric bill. His More than 1,000 miles away in For years, there was almost no wage came to 51% of median income, burden of a higher minimum wage, plans to save for college are on hold Detroit, Nya Marshall worries that a debate at all about a minimum wage. France’s 62%. actually added more jobs than those in - indefi nitely. Research has $15 minimum wage would drive up Classical economists had standard Biden’s plan would shake things Pennsylvania did. A bump up to $15 an hour “would her labor costs and perhaps force her to advice on imposing or raising mini- up entirely. He proposes gradually “What they found was very shock- defi nitely be a very nice boost; $11 is ‘ close her 2-year-old restaurant, already still not a living wage,’’ Cardona said. shown that raising mum wages: Don’t. Piling higher labor raising the wage to $15 an hour by ing: Wages rose quite a bit, but there under strain from the viral pandemic. costs on employers, the thinking went, 2025, starting with a jump to $9.50 this was no evidence of reduced employ- “A lot of people who make this wage, the minimum wage Between Cardona’s hope and Mar- would force them to cut jobs and end year. Thereafter, it would be indexed ment,” said Arindrajit Dube of the they live paycheck to paycheck.’’ shall’s fear lies a roiling public debate, up hurting the very low-wage workers to grow at the same rate as the U.S. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Many of his co-workers, he notes, one with enormous consequences for the minimum wage was intended to median wage - the point at which half a leading minimum wage researcher. aren’t teenagers making a few bucks reduces poverty and American workers and businesses. help. earn more and half earn less. “This sent shockwaves through the after school. They’re single mothers or Will the Biden administration succeed But groundbreaking research in the Advocates say that raising wages at discipline.’’ elderly adults, struggling to pay rent, has positive eco- in enacting a much higher federal mini- 1990s suggested that the Econ 101 the bottom of the pay scale would help Dube, who himself worked a afford utility bills, buy groceries. mum wage - and should it? Economists version was simplistic at best. Now relieve income inequality, including ra- minimum wage job at McDonald’s as As for Biden’s minimum wage nomic benefits for have argued the merits of minimum there is growing confi dence among cial disparities in earnings. The liberal a teenager in Seattle, cites two reasons proposal, it is up against the Senate’s wage hikes for years. economists - though far from a con- Economic Policy Institute estimates why he thinks higher minimum wages “budget reconciliation” rules, which workers, their fami- “The mother of all economic sensus - that lawmakers can mandate that 31% of African Americans and don’t generally kill jobs. First, many will likely govern the president’s debates” is how economists Michael sharp increases in the minimum wage 26% of Latinos would receive a raise companies can raise prices to pass rescue aid package. The reconciliation Feroli and Daniel Silver of JPMorgan without killing large numbers of jobs. if the federal minimum wage were along their higher labor costs. rules allow legislation to pass with a lies, their communi- Chase describe it. Assessing Biden’s $15 plan, for in- elevated to $15 an hour. “A burger may cost 50 cents more,” simple majority vote, not a fi libuster- The administration has cast its stance, economists at Morgan Stanley Two economists at the University of Dube said. “What that means is that proof majority of 60 senators. But they ties, and local busi- campaign to raise the minimum as a have concluded that “the impact to em- California Berkeley, Ellora Derenon- middle- and higher-income consum- are supposed to be limited to budgetary way to lift up millions of the working ployment, positive or negative, would court and Claire Montialoux, reported ers are, in fact, subsidizing low-wage matters and likely don’t apply to a nesses where they poor, reduce America’s vast fi nancial be minimal, while the social benefi ts last year that the expansion of the workers. That’s a feature, not a bug.’’ minimum wage increase. inequality and help boost the economy. to lifting real wages of lower-income minimum wage in the 1960s and 1970s Second, he said, the higher a wage, Should the federal government spend those addi- “No American should work full time earners and millions out of poverty are “played a critical role’’ in temporarily the less likely it is that employees will remain at an impasse, states and locali- and live in poverty,” said Rosemary substantial.’’ narrowing the income gap between quit. So a higher federal minimum ties, which can go beyond the federal Boeglin, a White House spokeswoman. Raising the minimum wage, they white and Black workers. They con- could reduce high turnover at, say, minimum, won’t necessarily wait tional dollars “Research has shown that raising the said, would also help narrow the cluded that “minimum wage policy can fast-food outlets and make them more around. Twenty-one states increased minimum wage reduces poverty and chronic economic gap between white play a critical role in reducing racial productive. Employers wouldn’t have their minimum wages last year, Mor- ’ has positive economic benefi ts for Americans on the one hand and Black economic disparities.’’ to constantly scramble to fi nd and train gan Stanley notes. workers, their families, their communi- and Hispanic Americans on the other. Expert thinking on the minimum new employees - a task that consumes Cities are getting into the act, too. In ties, and local businesses where they The federal government introduced wage began to change with the publi- time, money and resources. a study out this month, Dube and Attila spend those additional dollars.” a minimum wage to a Depression- cation in 1993 of a paper by econo- Speaking with analysts last month, Lindner of University College London Yet just this month, the nonpartisan scarred country in 1938. Though mists David Card and Alan Krueger, in fact, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kemp- found that 42 cities have set minimum Congressional Budget Offi ce estimated Congress has raised the minimum over then both at Princeton University. czinski said the fast-food giant would wages above the federal mandate. And that while raising the minimum wage time, it hasn’t done so for more than Before then, economists had worried “do just fi ne’’ as long as the wage 22 of them, including Seattle, Los to $15 by 2025 would increase pay for 11 years - the longest gap between that their theoretical models did not increase applied to everybody. Angeles and Washington, D.C., are 17 million people and pull 900,000 increases. Adjusted for infl ation, $7.25 account for the complexity of the job Yet by more than doubling the already at $15 or more - up from just out of poverty, it would also end 1.4 in 2009 dollars would be about $8.80 market. federal minimum wage over a few three in 2010. (AP) ‘Nigerian farmers can sue Shell in UK over pollution’ LONDON, Feb 18, (AP): Britain’s Nigeria’s Ogale and Bille communi- geria, should therefore not be heard “But it also represents a water- “criminal acts” such as sabotage and Supreme Court ruled that a group of ties took Shell to court in Britain in the UK courts. shed moment in the accountability oil theft. Nigerian farmers and fi shermen can in 2015, alleging that decades of The Court of Appeal agreed and of multinational companies,” he “Regardless of the cause of a But it also repre- sue Royal Dutch Shell PLC in Eng- oil spills have fouled the water, the claimants appealed to the UK’s said. “Increasingly impoverished spill, SPDC cleans up and reme- lish courts over pollution in a region contaminated the soil and destroyed top court for a fi nal decision. communities are seeking to hold diates,” the company said. “It ‘sents a watershed where the Anglo-Dutch energy giant the lives of thousands of people in In its ruling Friday, the Supreme powerful corporate actors to also works hard to prevent these has a subsidiary. the Niger River Delta, where a Shell Court said “the Court of Appeal account and this judgment will sabotage spills, by using technol- moment in the Five justices on the UK’s top subsidiary has operated for decades. materially erred in law” when it signifi cantly increase their ability ogy, increasing surveillance and by court said Shell may owe a “duty They brought the lawsuit in ruled against the Nigerian claim- to do so.” promoting alternative livelihoods accountability of of care” to the claimants over the London, Shell’s home base, because ants. Shell discovered and started ex- for those who might damage pipes actions of its Nigerian subsidiary. they said the Nigerian courts are too It said the appellants’ case had “a ploiting Nigeria’s vast oil reserves and equipment.” multinational com- Shell had argued that it was not corrupt. real prospect of success.” in the late 1950s and has faced The British ruling comes two responsible. Shell argued that the UK courts Daniel Leader of London law heavy criticism from activists and weeks after a Dutch appeals court panies The long-running case has been had no jurisdiction to hear the case. fi rm Leigh Day, who represents local communities over spills and ordered Shell’s Nigerian subsidi- closely watched for its implications Britain’s High Court ruled in the claimants, said the judgment for the company’s close ties to ary to compensate farmers in two ’ about whether large corporations 2017 that the parent company was “gives real hope to the people of government security forces. villages for damage to their land can be sued in London for activities not legally responsible and the Ogale and Bille who have been Shell called the decision disap- caused by leaks in 2004 and 2005. of foreign subsidiaries. claim against its subsidiary, Shell asking Shell to clean up their oil pointing. It said pollution in the That decision can be appealed to the More than 40,000 members of Petroleum Development Co of Ni- for years.” Niger Delta was largely the result of Dutch Supreme Court.