By Jackie Faye April 3, 2015
McDonalds arches, Times Square. ©Miguel Vaca
McDonald’s Wage Hike
In July, thousands of McDonald’s workers will be getting a raise. On Wednesday, the company famous for supersizing fries and burgers announced it will be increasing hourly wages. The decision will benefit around 90,000 employees who work at approximately 10 percent of its locations in the United States. The announcement comes as several other companies including Target, Wal-Mart, T.J. Maxx and the Gap have raised wages in recent weeks.
McDonald’s will increase wages for workers in restaurants under corporate control to at least $1 over the local minimum wage required by law. That will bump the average hourly pay for those workers to $9.90 an hour, but the company estimates the hourly average will be more than $10 by the end of next year. McDonald’s also announced increasing other benefits like paid personal leave.
“We must recruit and retain talented people and motivate them to bring their best to the job every day,” McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook wrote in an op-ed in The Chicago Tribune.
McDonald’s franchisee locations, accounting for 3,100 restaurants and 750,000 employees nationwide, make their own decisions on pay and benefits. The question remains whether those locations will now be pressured to increase wages as well.
“These actions demonstrate meaningful progress, and it is what we can do right now in our company-owned stores. We remain committed to regularly reviewing the total employment experience we offer our people,” Easterbrook wrote. “This is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and cannot be for a company like McDonald’s, which is based on a franchise model.”
Douglas McMillon, CEO of WalMart, at World Economic Forum, 2012. ©World Economic Forum
Walmart Defends LGBT Rights
This week discount department store giant Walmart took to the Internet to support gay rights. The company posted a statement on Tuesday via its Twitter account (“Our statement on Arkansas #HB1228“) asking the governor of Arkansas, where the firm is headquartered, to reject legislation that the LGBT community said could allow discrimination against gay individuals.
“Every day, in our stores, we see firsthand the benefits diversity and inclusion have on our associates, customers and communities we serve,” wrote Doug McMillon, Walmart’s Chief Executive Officer on Twitter. The bill’s passage “threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present through the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold,” he added.
Some say WalMart’s twitter stunt played a major role in Governor Asa Hutchinson’s decision to ask lawmakers to take another look at the legislation to avoid potential discrimination.
Silicon Valley, view from above. © Patrick Nouhailler
Pao Loses Silicon Valley Suit
A jury decided on Friday that Ellen Pao’s former employer, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, did not discriminate against her. Sexism in Silicon Valley has been a subject of growing media attention in recent months and plenty of ink has been dedicated to the case.
In the Washington Post, Andrea Peterson argues that despite Pao’s loss, the lawsuit helped to raise national awareness about the issue. One group of tech workers raised money and paid for a full-page ad with a simple message: “Thanks Ellen.” The ad appeared in Tuesday’s edition of the Palo Alto Daily Post.
Pao’s ex-boss at the venture capital firm John Doerr took the stand to describe some of the structural issues in the industry that make it difficult for women to get ahead in tech.
Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen. © International Monetary Fund
Weak Jobs Could Delay Rate Hike
Following a strong 12-month run, new job creation slowed sharply in March. U.S. employers created just 126,000 new jobs, about half the number predicted by forecasters. The official unemployment rate remained flat at 5.5%.
Writing in Bloomberg View, chief economic adviser at Allianz Mohamed A. El-Erian noted that a closer look at the composition of job gains and losses indicates weather disruptions and “international headwinds” contributed to the disappointing number.
According to Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist with Capital Economics, weak March job growth numbers could deter the Central Bank from hiking benchmark interest rates in June as some forecasters have predicted. Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen has said in recent policy statements that while interest rate hikes are coming, they depend on continuing strength in economic indicators.
Bloomberg offers a series of charts to help readers better understand what the jobs numbers mean.
Billionaire Index
Ever find yourself wanting to get up-to-the-minute rankings of the world’s wealthiest? Bloomberg’s got a Billionaires (and millionaires) interactive that is updated daily, with cute cartoon sketches of each individual in the ranking. You can explore, rank, plot and map them, or organize your list according to industry, gender, citizenship, or age. Did you know, for example, that four members of the Walton family, heirs to the WalMart fortune, in the globe’s top 12 wealthiest? You can also see who has recently slipped in the ranking (the Koch brothers), because their fortunes are listed in red, and who’s moving up in the world, because their fortunes are listed in green.
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Jackie Faye will graduate from Columbia University with a MA in business journalism in 2015. Previously, she reported in Norfolk, VA at Newschannel 3 (CBS), Raleigh, NC, at NBC-17, Columbia, SC at WIS (NBC), and Oklahoma City, OK. She has a decade of experience in journalism. Media General honored her coverage of drug shortages in 2012. After her report aired, a federal class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of cancer patients who could not access lifesaving chemotherapy drugs. She is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Institute of Political Journalism.
