Their prices beat Sam's Club. Nevermind that though... you may continue destroying your own strawmen.
Just adding another reason why Sam's and Walmart aren't doing as well as Costco.
Also, Walmart/Sam's employs 2.2 million people to Costco's 175,000... so Costco can't even beat the decimal. So there is Walmart's solution. Fewer stores, fewer employees.
There are better ways of making the argument that the original articles attempted to make. You can do
a more direct comparison of the
payroll costs of low versus high salary at Sam's/Walmart and Costco which is entirely valid, but there is SO much uncharted ground between payroll and sales that it is entirely stupid to make such a spurious argument.
Other things to consider in a Sams-v-Walmart comparison is store locations. Given that these stores are not all stacked on top of one another there is a difference in clientele that needs to be considered. Or narrow the comparison to Sam's and Costco stores that actually do server the same communities.
On the pricing, here is a good chart (you'll like it, it almost says that Costco wins on cost):
Sam's -v- Costco comparison
But in reality, what that table says is that you buy baked goods from Costco and almost everything else from Sam's. But the other interesting thing is that Costco really only wins on scale. Their total cost is higher than Sam's, but their item count per box is higher allowing them to squeak out a win on groceries, but then THAT price victory comes more from the manufacturer and the economy of scale than from something as disconnected as employee wages. In fact, in the items where you do the economy of scale trick (furniture, TVs etc.) Sam's Club beats them hands down. But on that table the winner on all proce comparisons is almost invariably the won who sells more-per-package.
So, Sam's fix isn't wages, it's to sell bigger bundles. But then not everyone needs a 2 gallon can of beefarino...
In other words, the HuffPo article is stupid, makes stupid claims it doesn't even attempt to back up, and calls it a day. They try to unsupported claim that people shop more at Costco because of... employee salaries. This just falls into the ever growing category of spurious liberal arguments that if acted on would make things far worse for the people they are trying to help.