Why did the CEO of Wal-Mart call for a minimum-wage hike?

Wal-Mart is already paying its hourly employees well above minimum wage, so none of the minimum wage increase proposals will have the least negative effect on it. As Lew Rockwell points out, the company actually stands to benefit from a wage hike:

So who would [a minimum-wage hike] affect if not Wal-Mart? All of its main competitors. And the truth is that there are millions of businesses that compete with it every day. Many local stores have attempted to copy Wal-Mart's price-competitive model, but face lower costs and can actually thrive.

There are many ways to compete with Wal-Mart. Not all shoppers like sprawling stores. Others like better service with more experts on the floor. Others just hate crowds. But a main way to compete is to hire lower-priced labor. This could mean that your employees are from a "lower" rung on the social ladder, but they too need opportunities. The savings can be reflected in other amenities that Wal-Mart does not offer. There can be non-standardized products otherwise not available. The location might be better. Even prices for goods can be lower.

Even similar stores such as K-Mart can pay lower wages, and that can make the margin of difference. K-Mart pays over a much wider range, as low as $6.75 an hour. A major competitor is mainstream grocery stores, where workers do indeed start at minimum wage. Target too pays starting employees less than Wal-Mart, if the Target Union can be believed.

Now, if Wal-Mart can successfully lobby the government to abolish lower-wage firms, it has taken a huge step toward running out its competition. The effect of requiring other firms to pay wages just as high as theirs is the same as if the company lobbied to force other companies to purchase only in high quantities, to open large stores only, or to stay open 24 hours. By making others do what Wal-Mart does, the company manages to put the squeeze on anyone who would dare vie for its customer base.

Indeed, there appears to be a long, honored tradition of large companies using government regulation to shut out smaller competitors:

Historians such as Robert Higgs, Butler Shaffer, Dominick Armentano, and Gabriel Kolko have chronicled how the rise of business regulation, including intervention in market wages, was pushed by large companies for one main reason: to impose higher costs on smaller competitors.

This is how child labor legislation, mandated pensions, labor union impositions, health and safety regulations, and the entire panoply of business regimentation came about. It was pushed by big businesses that had already absorbed the costs of these practices into their profit margins so as to burden smaller businesses that did not have these practices. Regulation is thus a violent method of competition.

If this is in fact Wal-Mart's motive, shame on them—but even greater shame on the federal government for giving large companies such a sledgehammer to use against their competitors.