The Container Store Pays Retail Workers $48,000 a Year, Still Turns a Profit

Whenever the national conversation turns to raising the national minimum wage beyond $7.25 an hour, corporate opponents trot out some pretty familiar arguments: Paying employees more will kill job growth, put companies out of business, and cause prices to go through the roof. But if the success of The Container Store, which pays its retail workers an average of $48,000 per year, proves anything, it’s that those critics might need to take a seat.

Yes, you read that salary correctly. The Dallas-based company, which has annual sales of nearly $800 million, compensates the folks that staff its 68 storage bin stores adequately enough that, unlike their peers at Walmart, they don’t have to apply for food stamps. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pay at The Container Store is more than double the national median salary of $21,410 that most retail sales workers are trying to survive on. That's only a couple thousand dollars more than the federal poverty line of $23,550 for a family of four.

CEO and chairman Kip Tindell told Business Insider that paying a living wage enables the company to attract amazing employees—which, in turn, boosts productivity.

“We're talking about business productivity. Of course, no one person is better than another person as a person. But if you can, why not hire great people? And you can pay them twice as much and still save, since you get three times the productivity at two times the cost,” said Tindell. “They win, you save money, the customers win, and all the employees win because they get to work with someone great. These people are the best in the industry, and I can't wait to get up in the morning and work with them.”

Indeed, far from killing The Container Store’s bottom line, business is booming. Its prices are comparable to other retailers', and the company posted $800 million in sales in 2013. Tindell said the business has also never laid off an employee—not even at the height of the Great Recession—and it only has a 10 percent worker turnover rate. That’s significantly less than the industry average of nearly 75 percent.

Tindell might soon be in a position to bring similar compensation to some of the nation’s nearly 4 million retail workers. In January he’s set to become chairman of the National Retail Federation. The stance of the industry group has previously been one of opposition to raising the minimum wage, which it considers to be a “job tax.”

“I’m working, frankly, to get the NRF to maybe moderate its view on that,” Tindell told Bloomberg Businessweek earlier in October. “It’s unbecoming to speak out against raising the minimum wage.”

Tindell finding success in swaying the minds of his fellow CEOs sure seems like it will bring good things for the companies. As for the employees, with an average salary of $48,000 perhaps the nation's minimum wage–earning retail workers will finally be able to afford rent on a one-bedroom apartment in America.