Big companies like Walmart are putting millions of dollars into political action committees to fund lobbyists who will put on their suits, set aside their souls and shill for billionaires against Obama’s minimum wage hike.

Why?

Because Obama’s proposal doesn’t just increase the minimum wage. It includes a standard of living provision which would increase the minimum wage annually. That way, even if you get paid the minimum wage from year to year, you wouldn’t lose any buying power.

We already know that keeping employees happy makes for higher productivity and actually decreases labor costs, but big business ain’t hearing it. Not even with example after example proving the argument time and again. But we will present it anyway.

Noodles & Co. ($300 million in sales for 2013)

 

Kevin Ready of Noodles & Co. wants customers to have a pressure-free environment where they don’t feel they have to tip. In order to do this, he pays his serving staff above minimum wage. Not the server’s minimum wage. THE minimum wage. In fact, he pays them enough such that if Obama’s minimum wage increase goes through, his employees won’t be affected.

If your kids are looking for summer jobs, this is a primo candidate.

 

The Gap (307 million in profits for Q1 of 2014)

 

 

In a recent announcement, The Gap increased the wages of their lowest-paid employees to $9 per hour with the plan to bump it a dollar more in 2015. Since they profited well over a quarter of a billion for the first three months of this year, we can bet they aren’t hurting too hard.

 

 

Costco ($7.9 billion in sales for February, 2014)

 

Walmart likes to complain that paying their employees more will hurt their ability to provide rock-bottom prices. Funny, Costco manages to do it just fine. Costco, while providing wages well above the minimum wage at around $17 an hour, has managed to massively outpace Walmart in sales, profits, company growth and in not being stupid.

 

In-N-Out (280 stores worth $1.1 billion)

 

McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King and other burger chains make a lot of money. But they do it on the backs of their low-paid employees. In California, In-N-Out has managed to profit very well while starting its employees at a wage of $10.50 an hour. They also use better and fresher ingredients than their competitors. Someone should tell the big boys to invest in their product a little bit. Oh wait, we just did.