What do Starbucks, Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe's and Amazon have in common?

CEOs Are Getting Richer. Everyone Else Is Falling Behind.

By Sarah Anderson 

The gap between CEO compensation and median worker pay at Starbucks hit 6,666 to 1 last year.

In other words, to make as much money as their CEO made in 2024, typical baristas would’ve had to start brewing macchiatos around the time humans first invented the wheel.

Starbucks is the worst offender, but jaw-dropping gaps are the norm among America’s leading low-wage corporations. CEOs of the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages — a group I call the “Low-Wage 100” — have enjoyed skyrocketing pay over the past six years.

As a group, these CEOs now earn 632 times more than their median employees, I found in a new report for the Institute for Policy Studies. Their pay has risen nearly 35 percent since 2019 in absolute terms, while their median worker pay hasn’t even kept up with the U.S. inflation rate.

CEOs are in effect getting richer while their workers fall further and further behind.

Grocery Chains Are Passing Trump' National Sales Tax on to US Consumers With Higher Prices

Tariffs are hitting grocery shelves while Trump is in denial

Stephen Prager for Common Dreams

As leading grocery chains increase prices on essentials, they are blaming Donald Trump's tariffs for raising the cost of living for households across the country.

According to the Consumer Price Index, the price of food has increased by 3% in the past year, with meats, poultry, fish, and eggs getting 5.6% more expensive from June 2024 to June 2025.

In a poll published this month by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center, 90% of Americans reported that they considered the cost of groceries a source of stress, with 53% describing it as a "major" source of stress.

In earnings calls and public statements, executives of many of America's largest and most profitable grocery retailers are citing Trump's tariffs as justification for passing on the costs to consumers, according to a new report released on Tuesday by Accountable.US.

From that radical left-wing magazine Forbes

In a first-quarter earnings call in May, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said that while the company was better positioned than others to absorb the cost of tariffs, they would still "result in higher prices" for consumers. 

Since then, some grocery items at America's largest retailer have shown 40% hikes that have outraged consumers, fueling calls for a boycott.

On another call, McMillon said, "We've continued to see our costs increase each week, which we expect will continue into the third and fourth quarters."

"Trump's tariffs are making groceries more expensive," said Accountable.US. "Everyday Americans pay the cost while corporations and the wealthy profit."

Costco's chief financial officer, Gary Millerchip, told shareholders in May that the company "saw inflation as a result of tariffs because we import certain fresh items from Central and South America."

Food industry mergers and acquistions hurt consumers and local economies

Corporate Greed Is Costing You at the Grocery Store

MIA DIFELICE, Food & Water Watch

During this year's State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden spoke to what most people in the U.S. are seeing right now — trips to the grocery store are more expensive than ever. The reason? Corporate greed.

“Too many corporations raise their prices to pad their profits, charging you more and more for less and less,” he said.

We couldn’t agree more. In the days before the State of the Union, we found that from 2020 to 2024, the cost to feed a family of four grew 2.5 more than the rate of inflation.

Meanwhile, corporate profits rose five times faster than inflation from 2020 to 2022 — some to record highs. What’s more, a recent report from the Biden administration shows how big companies benefited from worsening the supply chain problems that raised prices during the pandemic.

This trend has been enabled by lax antitrust enforcement that has let corporate giants get bigger. And as they get bigger, their power grows, too. Luckily, we know just how to tackle this — and so does Biden.

Would you bank on Walmart?

Walmart bought a finance app and reduced fraud protections. Guess what happened next?

by Craig Silverman and Peter Elkind for ProPublica

Only a few hours elapsed between the time that Carl’s pay landed in his checking account and when online thieves pilfered it. “They took all of it but like 67 cents,” he said. Months before, Carl had signed up for One Finance, a banking app. It’s owned and promoted by Walmart, where Carl works in a grocery department.

He was enticed by features like cash back on purchases at Walmart and the chance to receive his pay two days early, as well as by low fees and high interest rates. Everything was fine until Carl used his One debit card — for the very first time — to buy a video game at Walmart last fall. 

The next time he checked the app, he saw a series of unauthorized transactions that had drained his account. To get by, he tapped his savings, which he said was “just enough to cover everything.” Carl asked to be identified by first name only out of concern for his job security.

Carl’s experience has been distressingly common. One Finance was plagued by fraud and customer dissatisfaction after a Walmart-controlled partnership acquired it in 2022. As Walmart began touting One to employees and others, the “neobank” — as such ultraconvenient, lightly regulated apps are called — weakened user security and outsourced customer support. 

Con artists took advantage, spurring a litany of customer complaints to regulators and the Better Business Bureau and across social media platforms. One froze some accounts and blocked access to its app and website from several countries, according to current and former customers and employees.

Frustrated users tanked One’s rating on Google Play from 4.6 to 2.8 stars. So many complaints inundated a Reddit community for One users that moderators made the page private “due to ONE fraud issue and their lack of customer support.” One’s Better Business Bureau page warns that scammers are using the One name and logo to steal money via “loan and impersonation scams.”

One’s problems echo the fraud and compliance issues revealed in a recent ProPublica investigation of Walmart’s financial services business. That article found that the company resisted calls to rein in fraud and skimped on employee training as more than $1 billion in consumer fraud losses were routed through Walmart’s financial systems over the past decade.

The myth of men’s full-time employment

Men who don't work

Sarah Damaske, Penn State and Adrianne Frech, Ohio University

He’s not alone. Image Bank/Getty Images

Men’s employment in the U.S. reached a 20-year high in 2023, with nearly 90% of men ages 25 to 54 in the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

This supports the broad expectation – some might say stereotype – that full-time employment is the norm for American men.

Yet examining employment at a single point in time leaves out important information about whether people are able to maintain stable work. Our recent study of male baby boomers’ working lives – spanning more than two decades – tells a very different story.

In fact, men’s labor force participation has been steadily declining since the 1970s, and workers are experiencing greater labor market precarity – that is, shorter job spells, greater job insecurity and more long-term unemployment.

In our research as experts in the study of people’s employment over time, we have previously challenged the myth that most women “opt out” of the workforce, establishing that the majority of women work steadily and full time. That led us to suspect that the picture of men’s employment could also be incomplete.

To understand these long-term trends, we studied data from about 4,500 men collected over more than 25 years. We were looking for patterns in the amount of time these men spent employed, unemployed and looking for work, and out of the workforce and not looking for work.

We were surprised to find that only 41% of late baby boomer men – those who were between 14 and 21 years old in 1979 – worked steadily and continuously, which we defined as working almost every week of the year between ages 27 and 49. 

This is a cohort of men who were widely thought to have taken a “lockstep” approach to work: entering the labor market when they finished their schooling and remaining employed until retirement.

We found most men didn’t fit this stereotype. About a quarter didn’t reach steady employment until they were nearly 50. Another quarter either found themselves increasingly unemployed and out of work as they aged or able to find only intermittent work. 

Finally, a smaller group of men left the labor market entirely – some leaving paid work at relatively young ages, while others leaving as they reached middle age.

How Trumponomics works

 

In Praise of Inefficiency

Should We Serve the Economy or Should It Serve Us?

By Thom Hartmann for the Independent Media Institute

Trader Joe’s VP Marketing, Tara Miller, announced on the store’s Inside Trader Joe’s podcast that they will not be installing self-checkout machines in their stores. Good on them.

“The bottom line here is that our people remain our most valued resource,” she said. “While other retailers were cutting staff and adding things like self-checkout, curbside pickup, and outsourcing delivery options, we were hiring more crew, and we continue to do that.”

In not using everything available to them to increase efficiency, Trader Joe’s is very much the outlier in America. That’s because — unless regulated — capitalism will almost always push for maximum efficiency because that’s the fastest way to maximize profits. 

It’s become a virtual religion among America’s CEO class: maximize efficiency no matter what it does to customers, communities, or employees.

The result has been an explosion of efficiency across the corporate spectrum, leading to monopoly, oligopoly, price-gouging, a crippled small-business sector, staggering profits, devastated downtowns, and even driving today’s inflation.

Efficiency, taken to extremes, can be destructive to both consumers and communities. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Actually, self checkout isn't more efficient, Certainly not for customers nor for retail staff. It does, however, give owners an excuse to cut jobs. Period. Support Rep. Megan Cotter's bill to curb self-checkout in Rhode Island. - Will Collette.

Wal-Mart's Food Stamp scam

 

Boycott!

 

Could the US Regain Economic Self-Reliance?

Bring our jobs and businesses back home 

By Thom Hartmann for the Independent Media Institute

We can’t build enough cars because the chips, invented here in America, are all manufactured overseas. 30% of America’s oil is now being exported by giant oil corporations that are jacking up our gasoline prices because of a “shortage.” This is insane!

How did the Reagan administration and neoliberals ever since get away with making our nation almost totally reliant on China and a handful of other low-wage countries for everything from the chips in our cars to our cellphones to the tech necessary to build a battleship or missile?

And who turned our energy fate over to the Saudis? 

Of all the concepts that ground most Americans’ idea of our country, self-reliance ranks among the top. 

While much of it is based in fantasy ideas and children’s tales about “pioneers” carving their own lives out of the wilderness (in reality, community was the main value that guaranteed success for frontier towns), it’s nonetheless a foundational value intrinsic to Americans’ notion of themselves.

Self-reliance is also the number-one meme promoted by rightwing media and billionaires, celebrated by the Republican Party, and used to market everything from guns to trucks to survival food for Trump-humpers. 

“Stand on your own two feet!” is a favorite GOP mantra, particularly when discussing poor people looking for bootstraps to pull themselves up with.

Using RI pension’s financial clout to change corporate conduct

Shareholder pressure can make a difference

Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner today issued an overview of the actions his office has taken since 2020 to compel publicly traded companies the state's $10.4 billion pension fund to adopt more responsible and sustainable corporate practices.  

Each year, publicly traded companies seek votes from shareholders on items including electing board members, executive pay packages, as well as proposals from shareholders on environmental, social, and governance issues. As a multi-billion-dollar investor in the U.S. and global stock markets, Rhode Island's pension fund holds shares in thousands of companies.  

"My top priority as Treasurer is to expand economic growth and protect the financial security of Rhode Islanders and future generations," said General Treasurer Seth Magaziner. "Companies that actively take leadership roles in developing more sustainable business practices are better positioned to deliver long-term value to investors, including members of the pension system as well as all Rhode Island taxpayers." 

Highlights of the report include:  

Climate Change: In 2021, Treasurer Magaziner submitted a first-of-its-kind shareholder proposal requesting that Walmart’s board of directors publicly disclose plans to reduce the amount of the super-pollutant hydrofluorocarbon used by the company, and to layout plans to transition to cost- and energy-efficient alternatives. Hydrofluorocarbons are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions and contributors to climate change.  

Prescription Drug Costs: In December 2020, Treasurer Magaziner joined other concerned investors to press for stronger board oversight of Gilead, the maker of remdesivir – the only antiviral drug approved by the U.S. FDA to treat cases of COVID-19 – following the pharmaceutical giant’s recent decision to unethically price remdesivir at more than 500 times its production cost.   

McKee cancels fund-raiser hosted by Trumplican

McKee expresses SHOCK that such a thing could happen

By Will Collette

Our accidental DINO Governor Dan McKee issued a statement expressing his utter shock that his upcoming May 12 fund-raiser was going to be hosted by the co-chair of the Rhode Island Trump 2020 Campaign, Exeter's Paul Zarrella. At Zarrella's house.

Zarrella is a former Democrat who switched to the Trumplican Party and played an active part in trying to get Rhode Islanders to vote for Orange Julius Caesar Trump.

Zarrella also mounted a weird primary campaign against local wingnut incumbent Representative Justin Price, even though Price is so dedicated to Trump that he (Price) took part in the January 6 storming of the Capitol to try to overturn the election.

I guess Price wasn't sufficiently Trumplican for Zarrella despite being one of Trump's most reliable flying monkeys in Rhode Island.

As for McKee's disclaimer, it's bullshit. He claims he didn't know about Zarrella's Trumplican ties until last Friday even though Zarrella was a high-profile radical Republican throughout the 2020 campaign. 

No sentient politician, especially one at McKee's level, would accept such an invitation without vetting the host. At minimum, this is terrible staff work, but it could just be another McKee lapse of ethical judgement.

Like McKee's acceptance of a 2018 endorsement from radical MAGA-man Michael Earnhart as well as his acceptance of campaign contributions from the OxyContin tycoons in the Sackler family or the Wal-Mart scions in the Walton family. He rivalled Gina Raimondo in the amount of money he took from Wall Street.

Dan McKee became Governor when Gina left to become Joe Biden's Commerce Secretary. His unplanned ascendency has given him an undeserved incumbent's advantage when he runs for Governor on his own in 2022.

He had a lackluster six-year run as Lieutenant Governor - and almost lost re-election to Aaron Regensburg's surprise insurgent primary challenge in 2018. Until COVID hit, McKee's main passion was promoting charter schools. Now, it's promoting small businesses by lifting pandemic restrictions, against medical advice.

I sincerely hope McKee gets his ass kicked in the 2022 primary and goes back home to Cumberland.

Postscript: the state Trumplican Party piled on to McKee with this statement from GOP chair Sue Cienki:

How much of the country's corporate welfare gets paid

 

Raising minimum wage is just catch-up

What would FDR do?

Felix Koenig, Carnegie Mellon University

It may seem like a lot, but it’s not the most important change
in the bill. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The US$1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that the House just passed includes a gradual increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. 

While its chances in the Senate appear slim, the proposal has brought national attention to the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009.

Supporters argue a higher minimum wage would translate into higher incomes for millions of low-wage employees, such as restaurant waiters, retail salespeople and child care workers, and thereby lift a lot of people out of poverty. Opponents claim it would hurt businesses and lead to a lot of job losses.

As an economist who studies labor markets and income inequality, I believe both claims exaggerate the impact and miss a key point of what the minimum wage is meant to achieve. The current debate offers a perfect opportunity to restore the wage floor’s original purpose, as laid out by FDR over 70 years ago.

Cicilline report blasts Facebook, Amazon and other tech monopolies

The Many Sins of the Tech Giants

By Phil Mattera for the Dirt Diggers Digest

The 400-page report just published by the Democratic leadership of the House Judiciary Committee is a damning review of the anti-competitive practices of the big tech companies—Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google’s parent Alphabet.

The report finds that in various portions of the digital world these companies have amassed what amounts to monopoly control and have not hesitated to use it crush or absorb competitors. 

Comparing the tech giants to the oil barons and railroad tycoons of the late 19^th century, the report calls for aggressive measures such as breaking up the companies and doing more rigorous reviews of proposed mergers and acquisitions in the future.

Among the broader consequences of the rising power of the tech giants are, the report argues: a weakening of innovation and entrepreneurship, a decline in the number of trustworthy sources of news, and an erosion of safeguards for the privacy of personal information.

One aspect of the report that has not received much coverage is the brief discussion of the power of the tech giants in the labor market.

This is especially relevant for Amazon, which as the report notes has become one of the largest employers in the country and is exercising monopoly power in sectors such as warehousing and “has wage-setting power through its ability to set route fees and other fixed costs for independent contractors in localities in which it dominates the delivery labor market. These entities are dependent on Amazon for a large majority—or even 100%—of their delivery business.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This important report was conducted under the leadership of Rep. David Cicilline who represents Rhode Island’s District 1. He chairs the Anti-Trust Subcommittee of House Judiciary.   – W. Collette

Mask wearing should not be political

Low-cost, low-tech masks save lives. They are NOT symbols of tyranny.

By Jim Hightower 

The chief cultural signifier of our times is this: Wearing a mask. Or not.

These low-tech, low-cost, high-impact coverings are simple and effective at helping reduce the COVID-19 infection rate. 

Our top political leaders’ failure to produce, distribute, and require them en masse when the pandemic first spread ranks somewhere between stupid and criminal.

But while our “leaders” failed, the people themselves have led, rapidly turning homemade mask-making into a booming cottage industry and a charitable act.

Meanwhile, though, big corporations rushed out like masked thieves to exploit the crisis.

By Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

Even as their lobbyists shoved to the front of the line to grab billions in public relief funds meant for small Main Street businesses, they churned out touchy-feely PR campaigns portraying Amazon warehouses, Hefty trash bags, McDonald’s fries, and Walmart’s forced-to-work clerks as the epitome of all-in-this-together Americanism.

Their message in this global pandemic is that what unites us as a people is crass commercialism — so buy something from us!

Then there are the billionaire-funded, right-wing political fronts that are staging protests against — wait for it — masks. 

VIDEO: no bailout for irresponsible corporations

 To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auAM3tjTP5s&feature=emb_title

Can we have our science back?

Coronaviruspandemic—the consequences of sidelining science

Derrick Z. Jackson for Environmental Health News

    

Having paved over the science on pandemics, the Trump administration puts up parking lots. 

Literally.

It wasn't enough that President Trump's Rose Garden declaration of a national coronavirus emergency on Friday disintegrated into a self-congratulatory monologue.

It wasn't enough that he trashed reporters who dared ask him if he bore any responsibility for one of the worst responses to a pandemic by a wealthy country in modern times, driving the United States toward a double collapse of human and economic health and the indefinite shutdown of normal life and movements.

The finishing touch was that Trump was flanked not by a wall of dedicated infectious disease experts, epidemiologists, triage managers, and heads of public university research labs but rather mostly by Fortune 500 CEOs whose hands he shook as they paraded to the podium—violating a primary public health directive to blunt the spread of infection.

The heads of Walmart, Walgreens, Target, and CVS, with a combined 2019 net income of $20 billion, stepped forward to proclaim that they would each do their part in this emergency.

But their pledges were glaringly short of vital particulars such as how they planned to protect their workers or what kind of extended sick leave they might offer. Rather, they said they will reserve parts of parking lots for drive-in virus testing.

Thank you, Supreme Court

The Controversial Corporations Exploiting Citizens United

By Phil Mattera for the Dirt Diggers Digest

It has now been exactly ten years since the U.S. Supreme Court opened the floodgates for special-interest political advertising in its Citizens United ruling. 

To mark the occasion, the Center for Responsive Politics has published an excellent report detailing how political spending has changed over the last decade.

One significant finding is that, although Citizens United overturned the prohibition on independent political expenditures by corporations, most companies have not taken advantage of that new right directly. The biggest surges in spending have come from wealthy individuals and from Super PACs.

This is not to say that corporations have stayed on the sidelines. CRP notes that they are funneling much of their spending through trade associations and dark money groups that do not disclose their donors.

To emphasize its point about the limited role of corporations in independent expenditures, the CRP report notes that only 36 companies in the S&P 500 have contributed $25,000 or more to Super PACs since 2012. The report notes that the biggest of these spenders are oil and gas companies but otherwise does not identify them.

Protect firearms-Americans

For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERE.