Sanders Unveils the Stop Walmart Act: Will Walmart Sit Up?

Stop Walmart Act

We wrote about Bernie Sanders’ latest effort to tackle wage disparity at Walmart (NYSE:WMT) on Wednesday. Now we know the details of his new bill, as he unveiled the Stop Walmart Act yesterday. Let’s take a look.

Stop Walmart Act in Detail

The Stop Walmart Act was introduced yesterday. The most important details are as follows: Large companies should be prevented from buying back stock unless all company employees are paid at least $15 an hour; workers should be allowed to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave; CEO compensation should be limited to no more than 150 times the average pay of all workers.

As you can imagine, the final point is also causing the biggest stir.

The Stop Walmart Act and Corporate Greed

Sanders—who has called Walmart the poster child for corporate greed—highlighted that its CEO Doug McMillon was paid over $22 million in 2017 whilst the average Walmart worker earned a paltry $19,177 by comparison.

To put it in perspective, McMillon was paid 1,188 times that of the average worker at Walmart.

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But despite such a massive disparity, Walmart argues that it has already “increased our starting wages by more than 50% in the last three years and currently have an average hourly total compensation of more than $17.50 an hour […] At the same time, we’ve also added new benefits like paid time off, advanced job training, paid family leave and college for $1 a day.”

As it stands, the company’s minimum wage is $11 an hour.

Taking on Corporate America

The Stop Walmart Act is Sanders’ latest effort at improving incomes for low-earning working Americans. His Stop BEZOS Act was relatively successful; in light of it, Amazon increased its minimum wage to $15 an hour. However, it was bittersweet, as the company cut down some benefits a day later to offset the wage hikes.

Sanders’ next step will see him re-introduce another legislation in January. This bill will aim to raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, from the current $7.25 an hour.

Featured Image: Depositphotos /© felixtm

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