have to fire a slew of workers would have to jack up its prices the answer is no no and no according to a new study coming out a u.c. berkeley and city university of new york wal-mart our nation's largest employer of poor workers could easily afford to pay all one point four million of their employees a fair living wage about twelve dollars an hour without having to fire anyone and without passing a huge price hike on their consumers in the most extreme case wal-mart shoppers would pay about forty six cents extra per shopping trip about twelve dollars per year to support the pay raises of them are employees and wal-mart would still have the lowest prices because of their monopoly purchasing power and market control but would that pay raise the twelve dollars an hour many employees of the retail giant could see as much as six thousand extra dollars in their annual earnings and considering the taxpayers foot the bill to the tune of four hundred twenty thousand dollars per year per store to help support wal-mart workers who are underpaid and thus in need of government assistance a few more bucks a year on groceries is well worth the investment securing this informatio