It absolutely does! If Wal-Mart can pay more money for something, they would be /willing/ to pay it. The same stocking of shelves, they are able to capture more value from.

Unskilled laborers are just not able to capture that value from Wal-Mart because there is an abundance of unskilled labor and the average person (the laborer) has to derive income from work. They can't just say, "Puh, this isn't worth it any more!"

In addition, there's been a ton of improvements in productivity for warehouse workers. They are absolutely doing more work in the same amount of time.

The same is true at most big businesses.

That being said - at $26 an hour, there would be A LOT more pressure to eliminate more jobs.