Pay remains stagnant for experienced workers

James Collins has been working at Walmart for six years. His pay: $11 an hour, the same as what a new hire would make on their first day of work.

Collins, a 65-year-old maintenance worker at a Dallas store, joined the company when the starting hourly wage was $8.

Over the years, Walmart has steadily raised that rate, in part to attract workers in a tightening labor market.

But data show that pay for longerterm workers like Collins has remained stubbornly stagnant.

“There’s no appreciation for experience anymore,” Collins said. “Someone could walk off the street today and get paid the same as me.”

Retailers have made headlines for raising their minimum hourly wages in quick succession — CVS to $11, Costco to $13, Target to $15 by 2020 — while 29 states and the District of Columbia now require that employers pay more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

But economists say those gains have not translated to higher wages among mid-level workers.

The average hourly wage paid to retail workers dropped to $18.58 in June, from $18.65 a month earlier, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year over year, the average hourly retail wage has risen 2 percent, from $18.15.

“Poor wage growth has persisted even as we’ve hit 4 percent unemployment, and that’s particularly true for workers in the middle,” said Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank.

Economists cite a number of factors, including a decline in union jobs and fewer opportunities to move up within the industry. Add to that high turnover rates and a trend toward part-time work, and the result has been a growing group of retail workers who may be making higher minimum wages but continue to feel stuck in low-paying positions.

Wages for the country’s lowestpaid workers have increased 0.7 percent per year since 2007, while those in the middle — the 50th percentile — have gained 0.3 percent annually, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Economic Policy Institute. (Also worth noting: The country’s highest-paid workers, those in the top 5 percentile, received wage increases of 1.3 percent per year during that period.)

At Walmart, the world’s largest private employer, Collins says wages have remained flat — “$11, across the board” — for those around him since the company raised its starting wage in February. Managers, he says, have made it clear that pay increases are unlikely in his current position, where his responsibilities include cleaning up spills, emptying trash cans and maintaining bathrooms.

Walmart spokesman Justin Rushing said the “vast majority” of the company’s U.S. employees make more than $11 an hour. “In general, every Walmart associate receives a raise each year,” he said in an email.

Half of Walmart’s 2.3 million workers worldwide made less than $19,177 last year, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal. That translates to roughly $10.85 an hour for full-time workers. (Walmart, which had a starting wage of $9 an hour last year, considers 34 hours a week to be full time.)

PATRICK T. FALLON/BLOOMBERG Economists say minimum hourly wage increases have not translated to higher wages among mid-level workers.