Article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/careers-leadership/why-raise-the-minimum-wage-just-ask-costco/article20839767/
This article talks about the perspective of Costco founder Jim Sinegal on minimum wages, and how he belives they should be raised. His point of reason is that if you give your employees a fair wage they are more inclined to stay, more motivated and require less management. The reason is that new workers require training and often need more supervision earlier on,and with a high turnover in places such as the fast food industry the cost can add up. That is why Sinegal believed a raise in minimum wage is beneficial to not just the families but also the company.
I thought this point of view was interesting because in Economics we learned that setting minimum wage too high was a bad thing because that meant the economy is not at equilibrium in terms of wages. With an increase of wages companies are less inclined to hire people and therefore more people demand jobs than there are supply of jobs. Hence, the unemployment rates would go up.
From my own opinion I tend to agree with the economics theory more because the reason Costco is able to retain the workers have these motivated people is because their wage is above minimum. If all companies had a minimum wage set at Costco’s wage than employees from Costco would migrate elsewhere or lose motivation. Hence, why I believe the Costco business model only works if you are above minimum wage and a raise of the minimum wage would not change how well a company does unless they were raising it above the minimum.