How much do some of America's most recognizable brands pay per hour?

What factors drive the stock market crash?

2:37

(CNN Spanish) --

Apple announced that it will increase the starting salary of US employees to US $ 22 per hour, which implies an increase of 45% compared to 2018 levels. How does this figure compare with the pay of some of the country's big employers?

Before looking at the figures, a necessary clarification: salaries and benefits are increasing rapidly in the United States, as employers try to fill vacant positions and retain staff, but this does not imply that the purchasing power of people is growing because the increases fail to keep up with inflation.

In fact, wages and benefits for civilian workers fell 3.7% in the last 12 months ending in March when computing inflation, according to the Cost of Employment Index report released in April.

This was the largest decline since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping inflation-adjusted records in 2001.

• This is another worrying reason why inflation will be difficult to fight.

Here's a breakdown of what some big employers pay.

amazon

Amazon's starting minimum wage was set at $15 by September 2021, when the company announced it planned to hire 125,000 permanent warehouse and logistics workers at higher pay — more than $18 on average.

advertising

The company also took steps to retain its talent in the highest-skilled jobs.

In February, Amazon announced an increase in salary caps for its tech and corporate staff in the United States from $160,000 a year to $350,000.

McDonald's

A year ago, McDonald's also announced an increase in hourly wages at its US restaurants, which meant that starting pay would go to a minimum of $11 to $17 an hour, and the starting range for managers of shift to a minimum of US$15 to US$20, depending on where the establishment is located.

starbucks

Starbucks announced from 2020 improvements in their salaries.

In December of that year, he promised to secure a floor of US$15 an hour and, by the summer of 2022, he promised that baristas would charge from US$15 to US$23 per hour, depending on the market and the permanence. .

By the summer of this year, his goal is for his median wage in the country to be nearly $17 an hour.

Earlier this month, the chain's interim CEO, Howard Schultz, said there will be new raises but they won't necessarily apply to locations where workers are unionized.

Walmart

Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, said in September that its workers who handle the front of the store, food and general merchandise units, will receive a raise of at least a dollar an hour, for a payment of US$ 12. The salary improvement would cover 565,000 workers

The average wage at the company, he reported at the time, was $15.25 an hour.

• Walmart sounds the inflation alarm and its shares plunge

CVS

By July of this year, CVS has promised that all its workers will receive a minimum wage of US$15 per hour, within the framework of a process that it announced in August 2011 and that implies a rise of US$4 with respect to the salary. previous low.

target

Target's minimum wage is $15 an hour as of 2020, though the company announced this year that it would increase starting pay for certain positions to as much as $24 an hour.

Bank of America

$21 an hour is Bank of America's minimum wage, which it expects to reach $25 by 2025, as announced in October 2021.

How does it compare to the federal and state minimums?

The federal minimum is $7.25 per hour since 2009. The figure is not adjusted automatically, but requires Congress to pass and the president to sign a law to that effect.

This period since 2009 is the longest that American workers have gone without a federally mandated wage increase.

A total of 30 states plus the city of Washington (District of Columbia) have laws that establish minimum wages higher than the federal one, set at US$7.25 per hour, according to information from the Department of Labor updated to January 2022.

You can see here the states with the best minimums.

With reporting from Reuters and CNN's Nathaniel Meyersohn, Brian Fung, Danielle Wiener-Bronner, Tami Luhby and Paul R. La Monica.

AmazonMcDonald'sMinimum WageStarbucksWalmart