2005 - %3, October  Wal-Mart's Strategy  | Thu Oct. 27, 2005
1:22 PM GMT  In the New Republic today, Clay Risen has a good
analysis of the Wal-Mart memo—describing ways to reduce the
company might reduce its health care costs while appearing to
care more about its workers—that surfaced yesterday:  The memo
is the result of a study carried out in coordination with
McKinsey, the elite consulting firm--and it shows in its
fantastic grasp of [Wal-Mart's] numbers and abysmal conception
of the workers who make them possible. One proposal would
replace the current 401(k) program, into which the company puts
a fixed percentage of the employee's wage, with a matching
program, in which the company's contribution is equal to the
employee's (this on top of the proposed cut in company
contributions, from 4 percent to 3 percent). From a cost-savings
point of view, this is a brutally efficient strategy--after all,
the average Wal-Mart employee makes $17,500 a year. How many are
going to set aside 3 percent of that for retir