I feel like the lowest earning employees on the totem pole is a bit of an easy scapegoat for high costs when executives make an exponential amount in comparison. I understand that if they weren’t in grocery they could be making similar amounts in another industry—my argument is more that the disparity between employee and executive is too great, regardless of industry.
the lowest earning employees are the lowest earning because those are the jobs for which the widest number of people in society can fill,
this often makes them very "easy" not maybe in physical effort but in their repeatability, and their formulaic process making them a prime target for automation.
this is completely separate discussion and disconnected completely from the increase in executive pay. Which is largely driven by the increasing size of companies. I may have the time frame wrong but something like 50 years ago the top 5 companies of any market segment controlled 20% of the market, today the top 5 companies of any market segment control's 80% of the market. This consolidation of markets is a few very large companies has driven executive pay. The other big component of that is the Institutional Investor, if you look at the raise of investment from Funds like 401K's and IRA's etc where most companies are owned by funds of funds of funds instead of people, founders, etc you also see the extreme raise of executive pay
> Walmart Inc.'s chief executive earned $24.1 million in fiscal 2023, according to a government filing.
Even if we assume only 3 cashiers (x3 for daily shifts) at the 4,630 Walmarts in the USA, and they make only $10 an hour, that's still $150 million a year.
Automating the CEO would save more money per person replaced, but the cashiers still are a total larger dollar group.
