Minimum Wage: To Raise Or Not To Raise?
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Martha Sellers, a Walmart cashier, has seen her salary go up but her hours go down.
Economist and USC professor Ayse Imrohoroglu asked, "If you're trying to help the poor, what is the best policy to have? Is it minimum wage or is it something else?"
Imrohoroglu said the current high unemployment rate could be made worse by a wage increase.
“You’re telling firms that they should pay people more than they’re willing to pay them," Imrohoroglu said. "So, since you can not really force them to employ people that is the margin they will change.”
In February, President Barack Obama declared to Congress that no one working full-time should live in poverty. Obama asked for minimum wage to be increased to $9 an hour by the end of 2015.
Currently, federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and in California it's $8 an hour. If minimum wage is increased to $9, it would be the greatest jump ever passed by Congress.
Imrohoroglu said there's a debate among economists over whether an increase in minimum wage will increase unemployment, because it's hard to separate the effects of a change in minimum wage from all the other things that are happening in the job market.
"We know that people who are earning minimum wage are better off, there is no dispute about that, but how do we measure people who are not getting jobs becasue of higher minimum wage," Imrohoroglu said. "That is a much harder measure."
Walmart cashier Martha Sellers said she agrees minimum wage should be increased, because "any little bit helps," but she is concerned that it won't be enough.
“(Walmart) won’t give you the hours if they gave you the higher wage," the Bellflower resident said. "They just cut your hours, so your making more money, yes, which is great, but your not making the hours to make the money."
Sellers, who works at the Paramount store, said she earns $13 an hour, which is an increase over the $7.54 an hour she was making when she started working for Walmart in 2003. But she said that as her pay has increased over the years her weekly hours have decreased.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012, 75.3 million workers in the U.S. were paid at hourly rates, representing 59 percent of all workers. Among those paid by the hour, 3.6 million, or 4.7 percent, earned wages at or below the federal minimum wage.
When asked if her current wages were enough to live comfortably, Sellers said, "If I got a full 40 hours for the week, then yes, but no, it wouldn’t put extra money to travel to go see my family. I can’t afford the gas to go back and forth to work much less go visit them.”
Sellers' daughter lives in Fresno with her two kids who are 9 and 11-years-old. Sellers' husband died of cirrhosis of the liver three years ago and since that time she said she has struggled to make the $700 a month she needs for rent.
She said the paycheck she received at the end of March was for $327 after deductions, working 41 hours over a two-week span.
"The schedule is so erratic that you don't know what hours you are going to make," Sellers said. "One week you could be making 40 and then the next week you are down to 23 or 12."
Sellers said when employees go to the managers and ask for more hours, their hours get cut even more. She is a member of OUR Walmart, or Organization United for Respect at Walmart, which was formed by Walmart employees seeking fair working conditions and higher wages.
Sellers said the Walmart's Paramount location recently reached 55 members in a store with several hundred employees.
Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, said there is no retaliation against Walmart's employees and there are strict rules against it. He said if any employee has a complaint they are welcome to come forward and action will be taken.
Lundberg said Walmart employees average a 30-hour work week, which recently increased three hours from 27 hours.
He said employees have been asking for more stability in their work hours and that is what Walmart has done.
As for the possibility of a raise in minimum wage, Lundberg said, "As a company, we’re certainly reviewing the minimum wage issue and we are having internal discussions about it, but at this point we haven’t made a public statement on it.”
Walmart's average hourly pay in the U.S. is $12.67 and in California it's $12.93 an hour, Lundberg said.
Walmart employs 1.4 million people in the U.S. — a majority of whom are full-time — 34 or more hours a week, Lundberg said. Although, he said, Walmart doesn't release the exact figures.
Peggy Webber, who works at Walmart's Huntington Beach store as a fitting room attendant and phone operator, said she is happy with her job at Walmart.
The 75-year-old retired from her job at Verizon Wireless more than 10 years ago, and she said that after a year and a half of retirement, she started looking for work.
Webber said she was relieved to get the job, especially after the difficulties she faced when she was looking because of her age.
During a three-way phone conversation with Webber and Walmart spokeswoman Kayla Whaling, which was setup by Lundberg, Webber said, "Walmart has always been very accommodating to my needs which I appreciate."
Webber wouldn't share how much she earns an hour, but she said she recently went to part-time after nine years as a full-time employee.
She said she is in favor of raising minimum wage, but before she could say more, Whaling jumped into to stop her.
Whaling said that since Walmart has not released a statement, she didn't want employees discussing the political matter.
Whaling also set up a second phone interview with Walmart employee Sylvania Smith.
Smith, who has worked full-time at the Altadena store for four months, said "everything is laid back and everything is good (at Walmart)."
The customer service manager, who earns hourly wages, said she previously worked at Vons for four years, but she praised Walmart, calling everyone a team player.
Smith said Walmart gives her steady hours, allowing her to spend more time with her children than she has ever had before.
Tara Riceberg, the owner of Tweak, a gift store in Los Angeles, said if a few extra dollars can take a person from unhappy to happy, then it's money well spent.
Riceberg opened her store Tweak on Beverly Boulevard 16 months ago. She employs two full-time and four part-time employees and said she already pays her employees above minimum wage by offering a starting wage of $11 an hour.
Riceberg said that if her employees are doing their job and doing it well, then she is "more than grateful and happy" to pay them more.
Reach Jen Nowell here.
