Grocery Stories, Conservatives, and the Working Class

Anyone who has ever worked manual labor or in the service industry knows how easy it is while in that position to adopt economic populist or outright left-wing ideas. The work is grueling, there’s not enough time off, and the wages are too low.

That tale is perfectly illustrated in a new book by Ann Larson, Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register, examining the lives and working conditions of grocery store workers. Described by the publisher as a book “in the tradition of bestselling classics such as Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Benjamin Lorr’s The Secret Life of Groceries,” Larson offers “a character-driven exploration of the modern supermarket, unpacking what works and what doesn’t, and delivering a blueprint for a better way to shop.” 

After her academic career stalled and the pandemic hit in 2020, Larson worked for a year in a Utah grocery store. Her basic argument in Cleanup on Aisle Five is summed in this paragraph: 

Supermarket workers should earn living wages. Cashiers and other grocery employees perform labor that society cannot do without. During the pandemic, their contributions were briefly acknowledged. Some employers offered workers an additional “hero pay” of up to two dollars an hour. But the paltry premium was scrapped a few months later. We should reclaim the idea that grocery workers are heroes—and not just during a crisis. When work is underpaid, the people doing it become devalued. Large retailers have seen record profits in recent years. They can well afford to pay workers what they deserve.

Cleanup on Aisle Five is an interesting book that makes some good points. It’s also flawed. Grocery store work is indeed hard—I’ve worked in a couple grocery stores, most recently Amazon Fresh—and those Americans who work such jobs deserve better pay and better working conditions. However, the problem is not, as Larson puts it, that “capitalism leads to bad outcomes for everyone.” Rather, it’s that capitalism without a moral compass allows owners to believe that it is acceptable to pay workers less than a decent wage and unnecessary to protect them—us—from injury.