Companies Are Raising Wages Without a Government Mandate
According to recent reports, companies are giving wide swaths of their workforces raises without the government dictating it. Some of the companies that have done this in recent weeks include McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Gap Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Starbucks.
Starbucks announced its workers would get at least a 5 percent raise this year. JPMorgan Chase is increasing the wages of its lowest-paid workers to $12 per hour.
One factor that may be causing companies to raise wages is the reduction in the number of unemployed persons per job opening. That ratio, now hovering near 15-year lows, and declining since 2009, is only 1.4 unemployed persons per job opening.
With such a small pool of unemployed workers to draw from, companies have to make it more desirable for workers to accept positions, and not jump ship to another company offering higher wages. In other words, the smaller the ratio of...