<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Wal-Mart has announced that it will be raising its minimum wage to $11 an hour for all employees and will also be giving out one-time bonuses.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The current pay rate is at $10, but the company will be seeing some massive gains from the GOP tax plan and has evidently decided to share the wealth. ;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&ldquo;Today, we are building on investments we&rsquo;ve been making in associates, in their wages and skills development,&rdquo; said Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s our people who make the difference and we appreciate how they work hard to make every day easier for busy families.&rdquo;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Wal-Mart has 4,700 stores across the world that employs 2.2 million workers, with 1.5 million solely in the U.S</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Since 2015, this will be the third increase in the company&#8217;s minimum wage. The new wage, which will take effect in February, will add $300 million to the company&rsquo;s annual expenses. The bonuses will cost Wal-Mart an additional $400 million this quarter.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Wal-Mart made $500 billion in revenue last year, which will only increase drastically this year with the new corporate tax rate dropping from 35% to 21%. ;The new tax plan will be adding billions to the retail giant&rsquo;s profits.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&#8220;We are early in the stages of assessing the opportunities tax reform creates for us to invest in our customers and associates and to further strengthen our business,&#8221; said McMillon.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">He also said that that the company is considering investing in &ldquo;lower prices for customers, better wages and training for associates and investments in the future of our company, including in technology.&rdquo;</span><span class="s1"> ;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The White House was quick to applaud Wal-Mart&rsquo;s announcement.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&ldquo;Walmart is the largest employer in the country and to see them make that kind of effort to over a million workers is a big deal&#8230; and I think further evidence that the tax reform and tax cut package are having the impact that we had hoped,&rdquo; said Sarah Sanders, White House press secretary.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The retail space has quickly become competitive with Amazon&rsquo;s continued success in the e-commerce space. Not to mention, its recent acquisition of Whole Foods.  ;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">But Wal-Mart acquired Jet.com and has been keeping up with the E-commerce giant. Its online sales have grown by 50% and it is aggressively expanding its online grocery pickup service.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> ;</span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Although the retail giant is also targeting the grocery business, it&rsquo;s making a major push into the apparel space.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> ;</span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">With the unemployment rate being low and the need for workers high for retailers, Wal-Mart is trying to attract and keep talent with this announcement.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&ldquo;The wage increase comes at a time when competition for low-wage workers is rising among retailers, e-commerce warehouses and other industries that require a large, unskilled employee base. The monthly U.S. unemployment rate has held at a 17-year low since October. Retail trade workers in the U.S. earned an average hourly wage of $15.51 in December, an increase of about 11% versus five years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,&rdquo; write <em>Wall Street Journal.</em></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Wal-Mart may be taking on this additional cost in labor now, but this doesn&#8217;t mean the company hasn&#8217;t made recent moves to cut costs.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&ldquo;To combat wage pressures, Wal-Mart has tried to save on labor costs by limiting overtime, adjusting the number workers per store and more recently by automating many rote tasks. It is adding more self-service registers and using robots to scan shelves for out of stocks. Last year, Wal-Mart had around 15% fewer workers per square foot of store than a decade ago, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The company says more than half of its U.S. store workers are full-time employees, meaning they work at least 34 hours a week, and that level &ldquo;has been trending up,&rdquo; said Mr. Lundberg,&rdquo; writes <em>WSJ.</em></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Wal-Mart is also being criticized for closing at least 50 of its Sam&rsquo;s Club stores, which will lead to layoffs.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The new tax plan, along with the fact that states and municipalities continue to raise the minimum wage, has influenced other companies to offer higher wages or bonuses.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&ldquo;The day the legislation was signed by President Donald Trump, AT&;T Inc. and Comcast Corp. said they would pay a $1,000 bonus to most of their U.S. employees, or more than 300,000 people. Wells Fargo &; Co. said it would raise its starting pay to $15 an hour,&rdquo; writes <em>WSJ.</em></span></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>Author&rsquo;s note:</strong> Trump&#8217;s tax cut is already working its magic and inspiring prosperity all over the place and this is just the beginning. ;</p>