We can agree it's greed, but I think it's greed on the consumers part.  People go to Walmart for only one reason, low prices.  If Walmart raised their price people would go somewhere else.  Same with gas stations, most are franchises and make next to nothing, but the average consumer will go some place else if the price of gas is $.01/gallon difference.  The American consumer could care less what employers are paying as long as they don't have to pay anymore and instead they blame the big bad companies.  Most of us in the middle of our career have a retirement, and that retirement is invented in these same companies, when was the last time you switched out of a 401K fund because they owned a company with low labor costs.