First, let's get one thing out of the way. Wal-Mart is in the business of cheap goods. This means cutting costs everywhere possible without breaking the law. I

First, let's get one thing out of the way. Wal-Mart is in the business of cheap goods. This means cutting costs everywhere possible without breaking the law. I don't work for Wal-Mart (thankfully), but I'm assuming the reason the wages are even this high is because of the minimum wage laws. For the sake of argument, let's assume they went through with this plan and decided to increase wages across the board, they would do it as a public relations move. Being Wal-Mart, they would receive a lot of attention and the move would be dissected by both blogs and more reputable (and respected) media institutions. However, once this happened, one of the biggest issues would be that Wal-Mart would then publicize the fact that they were putting the increased costs on consumers (to pacify shareholders). Consumers would presumably have the gut reaction of, "Wal-Mart is no longer the cheapest, because they are increasing their costs". A flood of consumers going to Target then ensues. That's just my hypothesis though. It would be great to see this play out in a simulation.