"One big downside is turnover. You look at one of the big box stores that will go unnamed, but which has very low wages -- they also have a lot of turnover. And lower turnover means you have to spend time and money attracting new folks … as workers and training them," says Dr. Walden, a professor in N.C. State University's Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

"So some companies may actually purposely pay more than perhaps they have to in order to keep workers longer," he says. "This is very important for companies where, of course, a worker gains a lot of on-the-job training and that training is very valuable to have with that experienced worker.

"So the deal here is with less turnover, the company can actually save on the cost of finding new employees and may actually take those savings -- use those savings -- to pay those folks more in order to keep them."