---
title: There's a Big Reason Walmart Just Raised Its Minimum Wage to $11. It Has Nothing to Do With Tax Cuts
description: Walmart's new $11 minimum wage reflects competition for workers, not just Trump's tax cuts.
authors:
  - name: Ian Salisbury
    role: Senior Editor
    url: https://money.com/author/ian-salisbury-2/
    bio: Ian Salisbury was a senior editor at Money, focusing on investing, banks and mortgage.
    at_money_since: 2013
    articles: 91
    covers:
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      - Housing
      - Investing
      - Lifestyle
      - Loans
      - Mortgages
      - Personal Finance
      - Retirement
      - Shopping
      - Taxes
    former_staff: true
published: '2018-01-11T18:20:08.000Z'
modified: '2024-04-17T07:38:14.000Z'
section: Business
tags:
  - Minimum Wage
  - retail jobs
  - Walmart
word_count: 364
canonical: https://money.com/walmart-minimum-wage-tax-cuts/
type: Article
source: structured-blocks
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![Walmart's Thanksgiving Shopping Events](https://img.money.com/2018/01/180111-walmart-minimum-wage.jpg)
*Walmart customers checkout at the retailer's Black Friday event with big savings on hundreds of top items on Thursday, Nov. 26, 2015 in Rogers, Ark.*

On Thursday, Walmart raised its minimum wage to $11 an hour from $9, citing the trillion-dollar tax cut signed late last year by President Donald Trump.

The company also expanded its maternity and parental benefits and said some employees would be eligible for a cash bonus of up to $1,000. "Tax reform gives us the opportunity to be more competitive globally and to accelerate plans for the U.S.," [the company said](https://news.walmart.com/2018/01/11/walmart-to-raise-us-wages-provide-one-time-bonus-and-expand-hourly-maternity-and-parental-leave).

The move is certainly good publicity. (While President Trump hasn't yet tweeted to crow about the move, [past experience suggests it](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/951236634095308800) may only be a matter of time.) But taxes are hardly the whole story.

In fact, [with unemployment at just over 4%](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE) and workers' [real wages finally rising](https://www.wsj.com/articles/real-wages-keep-powering-ahead-but-can-the-trend-last-1506265200) after years of sluggishness, the giant retailer might not have had much choice, regardless of what transpired in Washington last month.

Indeed, Walmart had already [raised its minimum wage to $9 an hour in 2015](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmartstores-results/wal-mart-under-pressure-boosts-minimum-u-s-wage-to-9-an-hour-idUSKBN0LN1BD20150219), and at the start of 2017 [halved the length of the training period](http://fortune.com/2017/01/27/walmart-raises-salaries-wages/) workers needed to complete in orders to get a raise to $10. And a Walmart spokesman acknowledged via email that the company had already planned an upcoming wage increase in "select geographies" -- although he said there was no across-the-board hike planned prior to passage of the tax law.

One company putting direct pressure on Walmart is its superstore rival, Target, which [raised its own minimum wage](https://www.usatoday.com/story/09/25/target-up-minimum-hourly-wage-11-october-15-end-2020/699182001/) to $11 a little over three months ago. And if that didn't put enough heat on Walmart, Target also said it plans to pay workers a minimum of $15 by 2020.

At the time, Target's move prompted some observers to predict Walmart would react immediately. "The news that Wall Street analysts, bond investors and Wal-Mart's competitors all feared on Tuesday didn't happen," [wrote Investors Business Daily in mid-October](https://www.investors.com/news/the-huge-news-wal-mart-didnt-make-about-wages/). "The worry was that Wal-Mart, facing the same kind of wage pressures as Target amid 4.2% unemployment, would have to embark on a new round of pay increases."

In other words, while Walmart employees should certainly be happy to take home a little more, whatever the reason, shoppers should take the verbiage from the company's executives with a big grain of salt.

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