A year-and-a-half ago the company announced a higher starting salary and other employee benefits. 

Walmart is generally known for its low, low prices. The catch is that those prices were made possible by pay for Walmart workers also being low, low.

Economics being what it is, that bottom tier pay structure brought some not so intended consequences sales-wise.

So a year-and-a-half ago the company promised to raise pay and make things better for its workers.

Neil Irwin writes about how it’s going for the biggest retailer in the country in the New York Times and spoke with Kai Ryssdal.