We Just Got Another Big Clue About why Walmart is Raising Wages

Last month, Walmart made headlines by announcing it would be hiking wages for a significant chunk of its hourly workforce, boosting its minimum hourly rate to $10 by next year. The move earned them a lot of praise (and forced some rivals to follow suit), but it also led to some speculation about what really drove the decision. Being aggressive about keeping costs low has been a key to the company's growth, but it's also made the company a target for critics who say they take advantage of workers.

Yesterday's Beige Book (an anecdotal roundup of economic trends across the various Federal Reserve districts) gave us a clue about what's really going on. The report notes that contacts in several regions of the country noted that employers are starting to have trouble attracting and keeping workers, and have been forced to raise their wages as a result. The bolded line is ours: