President Barack Obama praised Costco for its efforts to create new jobs and its higher wages during a brief meeting Wednesday morning at one of the retailer’s stores in Lanham, Maryland.
“Profitable corporations like Costco see higher wages as a smart way to boost productivity and to reduce turnover,” said Obama, amidst cheers and applause. “Costco’s commitment to fairness doesn’t stop at the checkout counter,” he added. “It extends down the supply chain, including to many of the farmworkers who grow the produce – the produce that you sell.”
Twelve hours after his State of the Union address, Obama visited the store to reiterate his commitment to ask Congress to raise the federal minimum wage and to make sure hard work ultimately pays off for Americans. He commended businesses like Costco who have created 8 million new jobs over the last four years in a time when the unemployment rate has been its lowest in more than five years, according to a White House transcript of the event.
He praised Costco’s CEO, Craig Jelinek, for understanding that America’s “businesses do better when customers have more money to spend.” Obama used the example of Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company to suggest that if workers have more money in their pockets, they may be more willing to invest that money back in the business, which in turn, will create profit and allow the company to hire more workers.
Obama also complimented Costco for its in-store product variety, jokingly adding, “I needed some time to pick up a snow shovel and one of those 50-pound bags of dog food for Bo and Sunny. I was told to get a big-screen TV, too, for the Super Bowl coming up – 80 inch.”
