[patio11]

The notion that employees at Trader Joes are different than employees at WalMart is the curiously American breed of classism, where the poor people get their groceries bagged by poor people but the rich people get their groceries bagged by temporarily embarrassed millionaires with art degrees.

[swatow]

It is completely clear to me when I go shopping that Walmart employees are (1) older, (2) less attractive, and (3) less well spoken than employees at Trader Joes or Starbucks. The difference is pretty big.

Your intentional exaggeration aside, I would be very surprised if most Trader Joe's and Starbucks employees didn't have some college.

To the extent that there is classism, it is in the people at Trader Joe's and Starbucks doing hiring, and the customers that these companies cater to when they making these hiring decisions. Not me for documenting the facts.

[barry-cotter]

Is your claim that there is a substantial overlap in <characteristic of interest> between the two firms or that the distribution is the same? Not being from the USA my knowledge of the two companies is limited but I believe they serve different market segments and sell different product mixes although they're both basically big box superstores. While workers at either are most definitely members of the proletariat I imagine tenure of employment and highest degree are both higher at Trader Joe's than Walmart.

The American variant of classism is more amusing than average to be sure.

[patio11]

I don't believe that there is a meaningful difference in employment pools between WalMart and TJ/Starbucks but I acknowledge that many customers of Starbucks strongly feel differently.