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Speaker 1: It has never been easy to make a living working

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Speaker 1: in retail, the long hours and low pay, surly managers,

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Speaker 1: and inconsistent schedules, But these days, retail employees say it's

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Speaker 1: gotten worse. Chronic short staffing often has them doing the

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Speaker 1: jobs of several people for the same wages. Customers have

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Speaker 1: become ruder, angrier, and more entitled. Shoplifters brazenly steal merchandise

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Speaker 1: in plain sight.

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Speaker 2: It just bolsters the thesis of the story that there

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Speaker 2: may never been a worse time to be retail employee.

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Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg's Devin Leonard. He and Rebecca Greenfield are here

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Speaker 1: to talk about the latest reckoning in retail. Many workers

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Speaker 1: have had enough. They're quitting for better opportunities in record

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Speaker 1: numbers with fewer people willing to take their place.

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Speaker 3: So before the pandemic, the quitrit was around seventy five percent,

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Speaker 3: and then since the pandemic it shot up to ninety

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Speaker 3: and hasn't really budged since then, which I find to

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Speaker 3: be really shocking because that is just such a high number.

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Speaker 1: And later in the show, reporter Olivia Rockman tells us

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Speaker 1: how retailers are trying to keep customers coming back to

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Speaker 1: brick and mortar stores instead of shopping more and more online.

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Speaker 4: The keys to a successful retail company right now is

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Speaker 4: kind of this idea of being sticky in a consumer's life.

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Speaker 4: So you can't just be in a store, you can't

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Speaker 4: just be online. You have to be on TikTok, you

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Speaker 4: got to be on Instagram, You've got to have a

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Speaker 4: membership or a loyalty program. And so the more you

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Speaker 4: can kind of be in any aspect of a consumer's life,

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Speaker 4: as creepy as that might sound, the more likely they

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Speaker 4: are at a shop with you.

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Speaker 1: I'm wes Kasova today on the Big take the view

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Speaker 1: from the other side of the counter back to reading

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Speaker 1: your story, it does not sound like a fun time

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Speaker 1: to be someone working in retail.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely not. I mean, I think in general, retail

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Speaker 3: isn't those necessarily most exciting job. I think it's always

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Speaker 3: been known for low pay and monotonous tasks and scheduling problems.

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Speaker 3: But I think with this story, we were looking at

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Speaker 3: why has it gotten so much worse? And it seems

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Speaker 3: like the job has just become much more complicated. There's

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Speaker 3: a lot more customer service problems to deal with. You know,

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Speaker 3: their customers are angry, they're cranky, they're ornery, they're annoyed,

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Speaker 3: they're you know, politically angry. There's like different tasks you

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Speaker 3: have to do now, and that all together makes a

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Speaker 3: job a lot less fun.

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Speaker 1: Devin, you talk to a lot of people who work

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Speaker 1: in different retail stores doing different kinds of jobs, and

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Speaker 1: what did they tell you, like, describe the life of

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Speaker 1: a retail worker right now.

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Speaker 2: I think what I found pretty amazing was that obviously

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Speaker 2: things got worse in the pandemic. Customers who would didn't

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Speaker 2: want to wear a mask, or people had to come

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Speaker 2: into stores where I guess there's a limit on how

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Speaker 2: many people who come in. You know, people are already

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Speaker 2: tense and kind of snapping out on workers. Then that

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Speaker 2: that sort of persisted, you know, post pandemic. There was

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Speaker 2: a woman at H and M who talked about how

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Speaker 2: customers post pandemic and started using the fitting rooms for bathrooms.

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Speaker 2: They don't have a public restroom there in ar Tavia.

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Speaker 2: Actually she's in Times Square, New York, So I guess

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Speaker 2: you could argue, you know, maybe she'd get some quote

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Speaker 2: unquote rougher customers.

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Speaker 5: We have a lot of people that come in that

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Speaker 5: are like angry at the world innocence. So I would

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Speaker 5: definitely say it's a little more hectic as far as

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Speaker 5: like safety now than before.

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Speaker 2: I guess they're represented by a union there, and they

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Speaker 2: had to go and you know, get the union to

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Speaker 2: talk to H and M to get somebody else to

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Speaker 2: clean the fitting room so they didn't have to do it.

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Speaker 2: But again, my jaw dropped when I heard that.

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Speaker 6: And what did H and M say about this?

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Speaker 2: You know, they declined to comment. I sent a bunch

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Speaker 2: of emails, but they I want.

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Speaker 6: To talk about it. That is a pretty extreme example.

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing that most retail workers don't have to deal

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Speaker 1: with that level of awfulness. But Becka, what are some

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Speaker 1: of the other kind of more mundane things that people

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Speaker 1: who are working in stores just have to deal with

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Speaker 1: that maybe they didn't have to deal with before.

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Speaker 3: One is that people are fighting themselves dealing with inflation.

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Speaker 3: You know, customers are coming in and asking why are

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Speaker 3: things so expensive? And you have this poor retail worker saying,

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Speaker 3: I don't set the price, like this is how much

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Speaker 3: it costs, Like I actually think it's really expensive, But

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Speaker 3: people get angry over that. So that was kind of

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Speaker 3: a surprising manifestation of what's going on in our economy.

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Speaker 3: Another thing is with retail crime on the rise, everything

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Speaker 3: being locked up now.

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Speaker 7: Super markets are embracing the anti shoplifting campaign. At Morton

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Speaker 7: Williams in New York City, this sign says it all,

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Speaker 7: please contact a manager or an employee if you wish

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Speaker 7: to purchase this item. Where are those things kept behind

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Speaker 7: the register?

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Speaker 3: It's just like annoying, but also maybe necessary you have

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Speaker 3: to deal with crime. Another thing that we heard about

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Speaker 3: that I thought was really interesting is that there's been

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Speaker 3: a rise in de escalation training. More people are getting

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Speaker 3: trained and how to handle these situations, and then some

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Speaker 3: of them are confused about how they're supposed to step in.

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Speaker 3: Am I supposed to step in? Is my manager's supposed

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Speaker 3: to step in? One of the people that Devin talked

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Speaker 3: to they got robbed and just had to stand there,

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Speaker 3: and you know, that's a pretty traumatic experience.

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Speaker 2: This guy described how he worked at the Walgreens in

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Speaker 2: Brooklyn and he's having to do multiple tasks, stock the shelves,

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Speaker 2: work as a janitor, take people's passport pictures, and then

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Speaker 2: one day a customer comes in and asks for all

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Speaker 2: the electronics behind the counter. He has his hand in

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Speaker 2: his pocket like he has a weapon. And the poor kid,

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Speaker 2: because he's a kid, he's a teenager at the time,

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Speaker 2: you know, he puts all this stuff up in the

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Speaker 2: counter and the guy just scrabs it and walks out.

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Speaker 2: And the kid was like, did I just get robbed?

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Speaker 2: But clearly he was just like I was just glad

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Speaker 2: it was over. I'm making minimum wage. How am I

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Speaker 2: supposed to deal with this? Is it even worth it?

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Speaker 6: When you talk to Walgreens about that, what did they say.

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Speaker 2: That we look out you know, for our employees and

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Speaker 2: also we look out for them mental health. Because Henry,

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Speaker 2: the former Walgreens employee, he just said all of the

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Speaker 2: things he had to do and often work on the

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Speaker 2: floor when you know they were kind of understaffed, you know,

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Speaker 2: that just stressed him out so much that he had

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Speaker 2: to take a year off from working to just sort

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Speaker 2: of like recover from the whole experience.

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Speaker 1: Beca you mentioned earlier pay, and that's always been a

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Speaker 1: problem that seems to have gotten worse too, is that

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Speaker 1: these jobs really do not pay very well a lot

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Speaker 1: of the time.

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Speaker 3: No, they really don't. It is interesting retail wages are

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Speaker 3: up and up a little bit more than the median

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Speaker 3: wage in the US, which has also been rising, but

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Speaker 3: they're still very low and it's much lower than most

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Speaker 3: people make. And on top of that, inflation is just

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Speaker 3: really eating into your paycheck. So even if you get

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Speaker 3: a big raise from twelve to fifteen dollars an hour,

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Speaker 3: I mean, you're still, you know, dealing with all the

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Speaker 3: same things that the customers are dealing with. Like, you know,

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Speaker 3: a couple of coffee costs five dollars, so it's not

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Speaker 3: much of a salve.

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Speaker 6: Devin.

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Speaker 1: And another thing you write about is that workers struggle

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Speaker 1: to get the hours they need in order to make

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Speaker 1: a living working.

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Speaker 2: Most retail workers, frontline retail workers, that is, are part

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Speaker 2: time employees, So trying to get a regular schedule, trying

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Speaker 2: to get you know, kind of a predictable schedule, that's

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Speaker 2: really tough. And there's a woman I spoke to us

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Speaker 2: said she just got a job at Staples and it's

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Speaker 2: the first time she's been offered healthcare. She said, you know,

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Speaker 2: previously she's been on Medicare, Medicaid excuse me all this time,

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Speaker 2: So you know, you don't have health care, you don't

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Speaker 2: have predictable hours, low pay, and a lot of these

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Speaker 2: people you know are really young. It just bolsters the

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Speaker 2: thesis of the story that there may never been a

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Speaker 2: worse time to be retail.

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Speaker 3: Employee and Bloomberg, we're always thinking about the global picture,

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Speaker 3: and of course retail work everywhere has a lot of

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Speaker 3: these problems, but in the US they're very unlikely to

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Speaker 3: be unionized. I think five percent of the retail workforce

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Speaker 3: is unionized. And the one person that Devin talked to

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Speaker 3: who wasn't a union, she did have slightly about our pay.

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Speaker 3: She was able to get the union to step in.

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Speaker 5: So my name is Rkdmliam. I work for H and

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Speaker 5: M as a visual merchandiser and I'm under a local

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Speaker 5: level O two ur WDSU. Being in a union help

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Speaker 5: because it is ever a time where we don't feel safe,

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Speaker 5: or if we don't feel like we're getting the help

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Speaker 5: in the building, I can always contact the union reps.

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Speaker 5: They'll contact someone over the actual store and make sure

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Speaker 5: that we are receiving those things that we do need.

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Speaker 1: Becka, Given everything that we've been talking about here, I

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Speaker 1: guess it's no surprise to find that the turnover rate

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Speaker 1: in retail is really really high.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's always been high. I mean because of

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Speaker 3: the nature of the jobs, also the nature of the workforce.

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Speaker 3: It tends to be young, like a lot of teenagers

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Speaker 3: people having other jobs, are other things going on in

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Speaker 3: their lives. So before the pandemic, according to corn Ferry,

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Speaker 3: which is like an executive search firm, they said the

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Speaker 3: quit rate was around seventy five percent and that was

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Speaker 3: pretty standard, and then since the pandemic it had shot

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Speaker 3: up to ninety five percent and hasn't really budged since then,

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Speaker 3: which I find to be really shocking because that is

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Speaker 3: just such a high number.

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Speaker 2: Then the high turnover means that there aren't always as

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Speaker 2: many employees working, and so if you're trying to hold

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Speaker 2: down the job, that just makes the job harder for you.

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Speaker 1: And for customers too, I suppose. I think we've all

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Speaker 1: had the experience. You go into a store and there's

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Speaker 1: nobody working. The person behind the register is Harry trying

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Speaker 1: to deal with people in a long line. There's nobody

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Speaker 1: can help you find your product.

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Speaker 2: No, well, that's exactly what the gock fam corn Ferry,

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Speaker 2: who gave with statistics. He said that these stores they're

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Speaker 2: still having supply chain problems. They can't always keep their

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Speaker 2: shelves stocked, and then the turnovers high. There aren't always

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Speaker 2: people to help you, and so that just exacerbates, you know,

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Speaker 2: customer retentions and no wonder they're snapping out on employees.

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Speaker 6: After the break.

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Speaker 1: Workers struggle to deal with surly customers. We talked a

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Speaker 1: little bit earlier about how retail workers have to deal

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Speaker 1: with angry and patient customers, and that really is something

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Speaker 1: that started to happen before and then after the pandemic.

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Speaker 6: Why do they think that happened? Why are people just

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Speaker 6: different now than they were before.

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Speaker 2: I think inflation, you know, contributed to some of it.

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Speaker 2: Have prices going up in stores, you know, going in

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Speaker 2: and trying to buy a piece of clothing that's seen

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Speaker 2: all of a sudden ten dollars more than it was

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Speaker 2: a couple of years ago. So here's one example. During

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Speaker 2: the pandemic, American Eagle. They wouldn't take returns anymore. So

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Speaker 2: guy comes in, buys a pair of khakis, comes back,

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Speaker 2: you know, the store won't take the return, and he

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Speaker 2: just sort of flips out. He's about to get in

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Speaker 2: the fight with somebody behind him in line and a

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Speaker 2: manager has to come out. But this woman's like, I'm

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Speaker 2: an eighteen year old high school role and you know,

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Speaker 2: how's I supposed to deal with this? It's just really

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Speaker 2: shook me up.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And then another example of how this has carried through

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Speaker 3: since then is that more recently, just this June, Target

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Speaker 3: has had to pull some items off of its shelves,

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Speaker 3: some LGBTQ items because customers allegedly threatened some people who

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Speaker 3: worked at the company's The head of the Retail, wholesale

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Speaker 3: and Department Store Union said that violence in stores for

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Speaker 3: political reasons is something that they never experienced in the past,

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Speaker 3: like that is a new phenomenon, And that actually was

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Speaker 3: part of the inspiration for this story, is that when

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Speaker 3: we are covering that on the team, I was just thinking,

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Speaker 3: imagine that now being part of your job, you have

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Speaker 3: to deal with somebody who's angry for reasons you may

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Speaker 3: or may not understand, and you're just someone working in

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Speaker 3: retail and you're on the front lines of that.

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Speaker 1: During the pandemic, when there was a really tight labor

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Speaker 1: market and workers had a lot of choices, they could

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Speaker 1: go other places, and a lot of these stores started

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Speaker 1: to raise wages but now that the labor market is

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Speaker 1: softening a bit, will we start to see this moving

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Speaker 1: in the opposite direction.

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Speaker 2: We're already starting to see that. Walmart recently announced that

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Speaker 2: it was cutting wage for some people, but I think

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Speaker 2: that's the whole point. Retail employees, they were in a

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Speaker 2: position to stores had to raise their wages. But with

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Speaker 2: the economy cooling and the unemployment rate going up a

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Speaker 2: little bit, companies shows aren't going to have to do

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Speaker 2: that anymore.

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Speaker 1: Becca, as you continue to watch the story and report

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Speaker 1: on it, what are you looking for.

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Speaker 3: Last earning season, Some retailers were doing okay, some were

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Speaker 3: doing worse. But I think there's a lot of forecasting

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Speaker 3: for doom and gloom coming up. You know, inflation rates

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Speaker 3: still rising. I think that's the big question, and how

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Speaker 3: the trickle down of how that manifest at all levels

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Speaker 3: is what we're always looking at from the worker experience

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Speaker 3: to know.

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Speaker 1: The CEO, Becca Devin, thanks for talking with me today.

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Speaker 2: Great to talk to you us.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much.

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Speaker 6: Let's take a step back now.

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Speaker 1: This Tumulton Stores is just part of the larger challenges

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Speaker 1: retailers all over the country are facing with inflation and

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Speaker 1: consumers cutting back on some spending and growing competitive pressures.

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Speaker 1: Olivia Rockman knows all about it. She covers the industry

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Speaker 1: for Bloomberg.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So, stepping back a few years prior to the pandemic,

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Speaker 4: what really started to happen in retail was that the

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Speaker 4: e commerce boom started at the same time that the

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Speaker 4: competition within stores was growing, and so you had too

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Speaker 4: many specialty retail stores competing against each other, and all

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Speaker 4: of them were opening brick and mortar locations to try

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Speaker 4: to be in front of consumers. To open a store,

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Speaker 4: you have to take on debt. And so these historical

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Speaker 4: stores like Toys, r Us and Seers and Forever twenty one,

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Speaker 4: when they really should have been moving to e commerce

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Speaker 4: and social media, they were still opening stores. And that's

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Speaker 4: what kind of started this phase of bankruptcies for retail

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Speaker 4: that continued into the early days of the pandemic. And

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Speaker 4: what that meant was that stores were closing, Some retail

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Speaker 4: workers were losing their jobs, others were hiring more people

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Speaker 4: the ones that were popular, and so retail workers even

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Speaker 4: before the pandemic were really getting shuffled around in all

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Speaker 4: kinds of ways. And then, of course the pandemic hits

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Speaker 4: stores get closed, and that's kind of the beginning of

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Speaker 4: the end for some of these people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk to you more about that,

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Speaker 1: because we had this thing they're people calling the retail

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Speaker 1: apocalypse when e commerce was coming for brick and mortar stores.

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Speaker 1: Why was it that they were so slow to see

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Speaker 1: what was happening to them and didn't move to online

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Speaker 1: sales quicker.

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Speaker 4: It's like any technological advancement where some companies take it

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Speaker 4: on faster and they're the winners and some don't, and

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Speaker 4: so it's just kind of a typical whole winners losers

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Speaker 4: story in that sense.

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Speaker 1: So it seemed for a while there that online was

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Speaker 1: going to be everything, and some brick and mortar retailers

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Speaker 1: really dug in and said, no, people want to come

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Speaker 1: into stores and they still want to be able to

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Speaker 1: touch the things we're selling and try them on in

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Speaker 1: the fitting room the old fashioned way.

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Speaker 6: Has that borne out.

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Speaker 4: The way it's shaken out post pandemic is that e

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Speaker 4: commerce accounts for about thirty percent of retail sales and

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Speaker 4: brick and mortar accounts for about seventy percent, and so

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Speaker 4: it's become very clear that you need what retail jargon

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Speaker 4: calls omni channel. You need to be in stores and

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Speaker 4: you also need to be online. In stores is still

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Speaker 4: a majority of what people are doing, But thirty percent

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Speaker 4: is you know, nothing to shrug up.

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Speaker 1: What are you finding that retailers say is their biggest challenge.

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Speaker 1: Now we've talked about some of the things facing these employees,

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Speaker 1: it seems like running a brick and mortar store right

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Speaker 1: now is a pretty difficult thing to do.

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Speaker 5: That's right.

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Speaker 4: So what we hear about in earnings calls is a

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Speaker 4: combination of what's again in retail jargon called shrink, but

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Speaker 4: it's really theft and crime. We hear a lot about

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Speaker 4: concerns about the macroeconomy. We hear about specifically student loan

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Speaker 4: repayments coming up and that affecting the sales. When it

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Speaker 4: comes to how that affects the employees in stores, obviously,

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Speaker 4: shrink is the most obvious right when you have theft

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Speaker 4: that affects the safety of the employees. So in the

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Speaker 4: most recent earnings calls for the second quarter, which is

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Speaker 4: the period through June, it's a time when these retail

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Speaker 4: companies have to be honest about their performance. And so

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Speaker 4: in the most recent round of those calls. What we

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Speaker 4: heard as a big topic was theft and shoplifting. What

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Speaker 4: we're hearing about shrink is it's coming from two places.

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Speaker 4: It's sometimes it's organized crime, where these kind of crime

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Speaker 4: rings are figuring out ways to take very highly valuable

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Speaker 4: products and sell them on a separate market. But we're

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Speaker 4: also hearing that sometimes it's the employees themselves that are

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Speaker 4: stealing things. And some of this is coming from obviously

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Speaker 4: economic shifts where people are desperate to make money. In

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Speaker 4: other ways, some of this is coming from, you know,

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Speaker 4: the apocalypse of cities that took place during the pandemic,

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Speaker 4: and there's more hardship in city centers.

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Speaker 1: But then it's also just like straight up shoplifting, right,

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Speaker 1: which or it's not an organized kind of thing.

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Speaker 4: That's right, there's always regular shoplifting in persons stores. These

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Speaker 4: companies have financial systems and security to try to account

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Speaker 4: for that type of shoplifting. But as I said, you know,

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Speaker 4: some of the struggles post pandemic and city centers have

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Speaker 4: meant that it's likely that that hardship is contributing to

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Speaker 4: more shoplifting in places like San Francisco and Portland and others.

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Speaker 4: Another broader economic challenge that's coming up more recently for

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Speaker 4: retailers is this idea of the end of student loan forebearance.

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Speaker 4: And so for more than three years, millions of Americans

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Speaker 4: have not had to pay their student loans, and the

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Speaker 4: average student loan payment is as much as four hundred

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Speaker 4: dollars a month. So retailer are getting really worried that

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Speaker 4: that bill that's going to come due now for many

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Speaker 4: Americans is going to stop them from spending at retail stores,

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Speaker 4: whether that's on clothes or electronics or other things.

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Speaker 1: And that's something that retailers are saying on their earnings

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Speaker 1: calls that the end of student loan forgiveness is going

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Speaker 1: to affect their bottom lines.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that has come up in companies ranging from Levi

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Speaker 4: to Target and many others. That being said, we've also

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Speaker 4: seen really really strong performance from some retailers. Lululemons sales

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Speaker 4: were off the charts, Abercrombie sales were off the charts

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Speaker 4: in the most recent period as we're urban outfitters, and

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Speaker 4: none of those companies mentioned student loans.

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Speaker 5: And so we know that.

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Speaker 4: For brands that are a catering to higher income Americans,

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Speaker 4: but also brands that are just very popular right now,

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Speaker 4: It's not all bad out there. It seems like the

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Speaker 4: brands like department stores that we're having a hard time

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Speaker 4: before the pandemic are now kind of talking about economic concerns,

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Speaker 4: maybe as an excuse for their performance, but also maybe

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Speaker 4: because it's a real concern for lower income Americans.

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Speaker 6: What are some other ways that they're trying to protect

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Speaker 6: themselves for the future.

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Speaker 4: What analysts tell me about the keys to a successful

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Speaker 4: retail company right now is kind of this idea of

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Speaker 4: being sticky in a consumer's life. So you can't just

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Speaker 4: be in a store, you can't just be online. You

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Speaker 4: have to be on TikTok, you got to be on Instagram.

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Speaker 4: You've got to have a membership or a loyalty program.

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Speaker 4: You know, Lululemon does running clubs where these people meet

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Speaker 4: at a lu Lemon store before they're run And so

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Speaker 4: the more you can kind of be in any aspect

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Speaker 4: of a consumer's life, as creepy as that might sound,

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Speaker 4: the more likely they are at a shop with you.

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Speaker 4: And so that is the store of the future is

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Speaker 4: being on all platforms.

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Speaker 1: And what about employees. That's something we've been talking a

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Speaker 1: lot about today. The pay has often been challenging. Employees

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Speaker 1: complain they can't get enough hours, or their schedules that

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Speaker 1: are already shifting. There's complaints about management. What are retailers

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Speaker 1: doing to make their places more attractive to workers, especially

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Speaker 1: in a tight labor market where workers have choices.

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Speaker 4: So two big retailers, Macy's and Low's, announced that they

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Speaker 4: were investing. For Mac's it was about a billion dollars

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Speaker 4: and for Lows it was around the same making these

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Speaker 4: major investments in employee training, employee wages, and that was

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Speaker 4: their attempt to solve some of the problems that really

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Speaker 4: started to emerge during the pandemic. And we've heard from

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Speaker 4: macy since and they've said that that program is going

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Speaker 4: well and that they're attracting more employees because their wages

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Speaker 4: are now higher. Higher wages for a retail company are

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Speaker 4: still often between fifteen and twenty dollars an hour, which

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Speaker 4: for many is not enough to live on, especially if

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Speaker 4: you live in a big city. The extent to which

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Speaker 4: that will keep employees happy is unclear.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, what can stores do to try

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Speaker 1: to turn things around.

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Speaker 6: Olivia?

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Speaker 1: We started out talking about the retail apocalypse and how

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Speaker 1: Before the pandemic, retailers were going.

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Speaker 6: Through all sorts of troubles. So what's happening now.

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Speaker 4: After the retail apocalypse. Obviously the pandemic hit, and what

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Speaker 4: happened in twenty twenty was that there was so much

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Speaker 4: stimulus and also such a high savings rate for people

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Speaker 4: that were now at home and not traveling or going

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Speaker 4: to concerts, that people just started to buy a lot

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Speaker 4: of stuff. They bought clothes, they bought shoes. We've heard

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Speaker 4: this narrative the pandemic was a tide that lifted all boats,

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Speaker 4: like people were willing to buy stuff from anywhere they

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Speaker 4: had money. What is happening now is, you know, as

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Speaker 4: we talked about, student loan payments are coming back, the

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Speaker 4: savings rate is coming down, the stimulus payments have been spent.

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Speaker 4: People are going to tailors with concerts. What's really emerging

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Speaker 4: is that there's winners and losers. So the companies that

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Speaker 4: were struggling with sinking sales before the pandemic that sort

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Speaker 4: of did okay in twenty twenty twenty one, their weaknesses

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Speaker 4: and their cracks are emerging again. And the companies that

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Speaker 4: were doing well before the pandemic are continuing to kind

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Speaker 4: of knock it out of the park. And so I

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Speaker 4: think we're going back to that story of twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 4: which is that these mall brands and these brands that

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Speaker 4: have failed to adapt to the modern times are not

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Speaker 4: necessarily going to thrive the retail apocalypse that we talked about,

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Speaker 4: all of the companies that had a lot of debt

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Speaker 4: mostly went into bankruptcy at that time. Now what you

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Speaker 4: have is companies that have sinking sales but that don't

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Speaker 4: have debt coming due until twenty twenty nine, twenty thirty,

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Speaker 4: and so we might have some kind of zombie companies

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Speaker 4: that are around and you still hear about, but that

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Speaker 4: you know are not going to survive in the next decade.

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Speaker 6: Olivia. Another thing is that prices are going up.

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Speaker 1: There's inflation, but there's also a question of our prices

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Speaker 1: rising faster than inflation.

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Speaker 4: During the period where prices were rising really fast, economists

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Speaker 4: started to question, like was this because costs were higher,

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Speaker 4: or was this like, you know, were they using the

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Speaker 4: supply chain issues as an excuse to raise prices more

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Speaker 4: than they needed to. And a lot of truth has

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Speaker 4: come out of that from the corporate profits data we've

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Speaker 4: seen that corporate profits have risen significantly since before the pandemic.

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Speaker 4: You know, input costs rose and they had to raise prices,

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Speaker 4: but there was a lot of what's called excuse flation,

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Speaker 4: and so prices are likely higher than they really need

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Speaker 4: to be and profits have improved across US companies as

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Speaker 4: a result of that. Shoppers obviously are more squeezed as

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Speaker 4: a result, especially those of the lower income spectrum.

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Speaker 1: And you said during the pandemic, when people had kind

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Speaker 1: of more money in their pockets and they weren't going

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Speaker 1: out spending money on other things, they were willing to shop.

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Speaker 1: I suppose now there could be sort of a reckoning,

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Speaker 1: a readjustment of people's willingness to pay higher prices.

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Speaker 6: That's right.

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Speaker 4: And we actually heard from Levi, this was the first

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Speaker 4: company that discussed it, that they have lowered prices on

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Speaker 4: some items at this point, they've lowered prices on items

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Speaker 4: that they sell in stores like Walmart and Target because

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Speaker 4: they know that people are being squeezed. I'll be watching

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Speaker 4: really closely to see if we hear more about disinflation,

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Speaker 4: especially in clothing.

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Speaker 1: Olivia, this was really interesting. Thanks for taking the time

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Speaker 1: talk to me.

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Speaker 5: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.

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