Footwear Insight

RETAIL STRATEGY 32 • Footwear Insight ~ May/June 2018 footwearinsight.com IT WAS BORN IN THE FAST- food industry, but the 2012 launch of the Fight for $15 campaign has come to have ramifications for employers across the board in the United States. While the federal minimum has been fixed at $7.25 per hour for almost a decade (higher wages can be mandated at the state or local level), areas across the country have seen wages lift. On January 1, 18 states raised their minimum wages to some degree and New York, California, Washington, DC, and Seattle, among others, have all instituted progressive annual raises that will put the minimum wage at $15 (or the equivalent in benefits) in the next few years. The same effect is being seen in Canada: In Ontario, the provincial minimum wage rose to C$14 from C$11.40 on January 1, and will rise again to C$15 on Jan. 1, 2019, and Alberta is planning to raise its minimum wage to C$15 in October. And while a growing number of retailers will be impacted by state or local- level changes, some think shoe shops will avoid the biggest effects. "I'm not sure that minimum wage increases will hit shoe retailers too hard," says Andy Polk, SVP of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America trade group. According to Polk, the average hourly earnings in shoe stores were $17.13 in February. "Some stores in certain areas of the country may see an impact, but on a whole shoe stores will not see much since wages are well above average." But stores in areas with wage raises say that's the not the whole picture: There are other, real effects that an increase in minimum wage has on the local labor market. Here, stores sound off on their top takeaways. Minimum Wage Raises Four Takeaways From Retailers Who Have Been There By Jennifer Ernst Beaudry

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