Cindy had been bagging groceries for nine years when I became her colleague at a grocery store in Utah.

My coworkers agreed to speak with me about their experiences, so long as they remained anonymous.

Cindy is in her late 70s. When we worked together, she distributed candy and stickers to the children who came through her line and wowed shoppers with her ability to lift 12 packs of soda and 20 lb. bags of kitty litter into carts. 

Cindy was also a gifted storyteller. She regaled workers and shoppers alike with tales from her time as a high school majorette. “I marched at football games and twirled a baton—a baton that was on fire!” A great-grandmother, Cindy had not lost her flair for the dramatic. She wore colorful eye shadow and adorned her employee uniform with beaded necklaces and brooches more suitable for a Mardi Gras parade than a supermarket. 

Soon after Cindy and I began working together, I observed signs of food insecurity. For lunch, she usually bought a two-dollar child’s chicken fingers meal or a small cup of soup for about the same price. With her employee discount, the meals cost even less. She told me that it was all she could afford. 

To keep her energy up, Cindy kept a bottle of Diet Coke under a checkout counter and sipped on it throughout her shift. “It’s the only drug I’ve ever been addicted to,” she said. Colleagues teased her about the lukewarm beverage. But she didn’t see the point of buying a fresh, cold bottle. “It’s still got caffeine, doesn’t it?”Cindy’s economic precarity was not unusual. In 2021, the year that I was on the job, grocery staffers earned under $15 per hour on average. Even as profits spiked during the pandemic, employers did not pass the benefits to workers. Kroger offered buybacks to shareholders, lining the pockets of wealthy investors. Since 2024, grocery workers’ wages have actually declined when adjusted for inflation. 

It wasn’t always as bad as it is today. At some stores, as late as the early 1990s, unionized employees earned middle-class wages. But pay fell off a cliff along with unionization rates. These days, only about 4 percent of retail workers are unionized. Grocery staffers are essential workers with a range of important skills, but they have no bargaining power. 

At the grocery store I worked in, Cindy was not the only colleague struggling to keep food on the table. Some cashiers qualified for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. A federal program that provides limited food aid to working people, 23 million adults used SNAP in 2023. Thirty-five percent of beneficiaries were children. The program has regularly been targeted for cuts by both parties. President Ronald Reagan demanded reductions as part of the 1981 federal budget while, in the 1990s, Bill Clinton’s welfare reform policies led to significant cuts. In 2025,........

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