Success Quote by James Sinegal

Sinegal’s line is a tell: it dresses up a hard-nosed business argument in the soft clothing of social concern. “We’ve always been in favor of improved wages” sounds like benevolence, almost civic-minded. Then he snaps the lens into focus: higher pay is good because it boomerangs back to the cash register. The middle class isn’t framed as an end worth protecting; it’s a demand engine. Workers, in this telling, are also customers, and “Costco” is the punchline that reveals the real constituency.

The intent is strategic and oddly disarming. By anchoring the case for better wages in consumption rather than morality, Sinegal speaks in the native language of American business: incentives, not sermons. It’s a message designed to reassure skeptics who hear “higher wages” and think “lower profits.” He’s arguing that the trade-off is overstated, that paying people more can expand the pie by expanding shopping carts.

The subtext is a quiet critique of short-term capitalism. If the middle class weakens, retail built on volume and churn starts to eat itself. Costco’s model - membership loyalty, high volume, relatively thin margins - depends on households with enough slack to buy in bulk and treat a warehouse run as routine, not a splurge. In context, this is Sinegal staking out a minority CEO position: wages as infrastructure. Not charity, not virtue signaling - self-preservation with a hint of social contract.