Reply To: Walmart's minumum wage

#17934
swalsh81
Member

Prices are not determined by cost of production (which includes cost of display sales etc in stores). prices are determined by demand for a product (in relation to the supply of money of course). Thus, costs of production are actually indirectly dictated by demand for a product (that is, unless you are speculating a future demand, if cost of production is higher then the price consumers are willing to pay, the good will not be produced). If the minimum wage were raised to something like $12, it is unlikely we would actually see an across-the-board 1.1% increase in prices at walmart. Prices might inch up if the market could handle it, but the majority of the new cost to walmart would actually come from the employees themselves. (not knowing what benefits walmart provides) it may reduce its employee discount, start charging more for employee uniforms, keep even fewer cashiers on at a time, have fewer people on the floor helping customers, reduce its overnight cleanup crew, or any of a number of other things.