US: The chief executive of the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, H Lee Scott jnr, has called on the US Congress to raise the country's minimum wage from $5.15 an hour, saying the company's customers are "struggling to get by".
The retailer has long been criticised for paying low wages, providing few healthcare benefits and causing the demise of small businesses across the US, but Mr Scott made the appeal in a speech to directors and executives on Monday.
"We have seen an increase in spending on the 1st and 15th of each month and less spending at the end of the month, letting us know that our customers simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities between pay-cheques," he said.
"It's obviously time to raise the minimum wage. I'm a big advocate of it," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
"That said, there is some pretty serious posturing going on here . . . One can't help but think if they want people to have more money, how about paying your workers more?"
Mr Bernstein noted that Wal-Mart workers on average were paid slightly above the minimum wage, but there are "certainly lots of workers" at the company that remain "in dead-end minimum wage jobs".
Mr Scott emphasised he was calling for the improvement in wages for workers who were his customers and said the company could not change its own wage structure because of tough competition.
"Even slight overall adjustments to wages eliminate our thin profit margin," he said. "Because we are so big, people forget that we have to compete."
According to Wal-Mart, full-time workers are paid an average of $9.68 an hour. A spokeswoman said all the company's workers started above the minimum wage.