Today's WSJ reports (p.A2; sorry no link) that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott "called on Congress to consider raising the minimum wage."

Why would Wal-Mart advocate a minimum wage hike? Scott claims it's time to "help working families" who are having a difficult time buying products from Wal-Mart. (Here's a previous post on the "working families" gibberish.)

Scott's argument that a minimum wage hike would help Wal-Mart's sales is specious. Here's an excerpt from an NBER Working Paper's abstract:

The evidence indicates that workers initially earning near the minimum wage are adversely affected by minimum wage increases, while, not surprisingly, higher-wage workers are little affected. Although wages of low-wage workers increase , their hours and employment decline, and the combined effect of these changes is a decline in earned income.

For Wal-Mart's real motivation we return to Bruce Yandle's notion of bootleggers and Baptists. The WSJ reports,

Though Wal-Mart pays above the current $5.15 per hour minimum wage--the average hourly wage among its 1.3 million U.S. workers is just under $10 per hour--some of its smaller competitors don't pay as much. As a result, a boost in the minimum wage could pressure the profitability of Wal-Mart competitors.

ADDENDUM: Below is part of an email I received about three weeks ago. I cannot fathom what would have made the sender think I'd be interested.

Hi Frank:

We'd love to give as many people as possible the opportunity to talk directly with the filmmaker and our other esteemed panelists. Pease consider sharing this chat with your audience to help involve more folks in the fight against the big box Goliath.

UPDATE: Ulterior motives are nothing new for minimum wage supporters. From Alex Tabarrok on MR:

It's no surprise that progressives at the turn of the twentieth century supported minimum wages and restrictions on working hours and conditions. Isn't this what it means to be a progressive? Indeed, but what is more surprising is why the progressives advocated these laws. A first clue is that many advocated labor legislation "for women and for women only."

Unlike today's progressives, the originals understood that minimum wages for women would put women out of work - that was the point and the more unemployment of women the better!