Recently, McDonald’s decided to raise wages for many of its hourly restaurant workers. The rise is modest, from about $9 to about $10, but already the company’s executives claim that they are seeing improvements in service quality:
“It has done what we expected it to -- 90 day turnover rates are down, our survey scores are up—we have more staff in restaurants,” McDonald’s U.S. president Mike Andres told analysts at a UBS conference... “So far we’re pleased with it."
So far the company’s financial results haven't suffered -- just the opposite; sales are rising.
With stagnant wages one of the hottest topics these days, and calls to raise minimum wages resounding across the country, stories like this one are obviously eye-catching. If raising wages improves worker performance enough to help the bottom line, then there’s no tradeoff between how much companies can afford to pay workers -- at least within reason -- and how many workers they can afford to employ. Obviously if you raise wages high enough -- imagine mandating $1,000 an hour! -- a lot of people will be put out of work. But it could be that most American companies are in a safe zone where hiking wages modestly makes economic sense.
But why? If it helps the bottom line to raise wages, why haven’t companies done it already?...
