Low-Wage Employees Hired by Major Corporations

While most people believe that low-wage employees are actually employed by smaller businesses with fewer people on the payroll, this is entirely untrue. In fact, many of the low-wage employees are working for larger corporations, many of which have earned a whole lot of profit even during a time when the economy was at its worst due to the recession. A new report that was recently released by the National Employment Law Project showed that more than half of low-wage employees in the United States are working for companies that employ at least a hundred employees but usually many more. Some of these major corporations include WalMart, Taco Bell, McDonald’s and KFC.

Some of the biggest corporations that have hired low-wage employees were actually more profitable than one would thing. Many of these corporations, a total of about 90 percent, were profitable despite the economy and its struggles. Several of the companies managed to see an increase in revenue, more money being spent than it was during and before the recession, which typically means these corporations would have had the ability to increase the minimum wage paid to the employees.

The amount of minimum wage paid to individuals per hour is at $7.25, unchanged for the past three years. It was former President George W. Bush and his administration that raised the minimum wage standard and while the President Barack Obama had planned to increase that by $9.50, bills have not gone through the House or the Senate just yet, meaning people are still stuck earning $7.25 per hour if they are earning minimum wage.

There is a debate on the minimum wage and how much people should be earning when earning the bare minimum. Many Republicans believe that the minimum wage rate should not be raised at all. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney seems to be a bit indecisive on whether or not the minimum wage rate should be raised. It is believed that if the pace kept going with increasing the minimum wage rate, at this point in time, people would be able to earn around $10 per hour while earning minimum wage.

The fact of the matter is that a lot of the larger corporations are earning a lot of profit. They are earning so much profit, they should be able to share with their lower wage employees too so that the minimum wage rate could be raised but instead, it seems those profits that the corporations are earning are being shared more so with the top executives instead.