The Corner Store Heroes

In an age of corporate detachment, automation, and possibly hundreds of millions out of work, Main Street may be a new hope.

Photo by Robinson Greig on Unsplash

While mega-corporations pour trillions into automation and AI even as they shed workers and suppress wages—the real backbone of the U.S. economy is shifting back to Main Street. Microbusinesses, SMEs, and women-owned firms now make up 99.9% of local American businesses, generate trillions in economic activity, and provide workplaces that offer work-life balance, living wages, and community-rooted growth.

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Fly me to the Moon 

Sam Walton spent the last several months of his life bed-ridden with bone cancer, writing his autobiography. 

The small-business-owner-turned-retail-magnate had a lot to look back on. In eight decades, he’d gone from managing Walton’s Five and Dime on the main street of Bentonville, Arkansas, to managing a company of 2.1 million employees all over the globe. He’d pioneered the concept of self-checkout, enshrined the discount as an immovable clause in the Bill of Consumer Rights, and created a system of distribution that some have called, “capitalism’s planned economy”. 

Near the close of the book, he writes: 

“I can honestly say that if I had the choices to make all over again, I would make just about the same ones…. We’ve improved the standard of living of our customers, whom we’ve saved billions of dollars, and of our associates, who have been able to share profits. Many of both groups also have invested in our stock and profited all through the years.” 

Today, Walmart cannot afford to raise minimum wages by $1.

The retailer is the largest private employer in the world, and the fourth largest employer overall behind India’s Ministry of Defence, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the People’s Liberation Army of China. 

Walmart grossed $648 billion in 2024, a GDP that would put it in the top twenty-five countries in the world, out-earning countries like Sweden, Ireland, and Hong Kong. Its 2024 net income after operating costs was $15 billion. That means after taxes, Walmart had more money than the combined annual budgets of South Dakota, New Hampshire, and Vermont. 

Yet, after paying dividends to shareholders, that income is virtually all but erased. To be fair, the company does have close to $100 billion in retained earnings—basically its big corporate savings account. But raising its minimum wage for store associates by even $1 would empty those savings in 3 years. 

The average Walmart full-time store associate makes $29k after taxes each year. The current average cost of living in the United States is around $62k. Walmart associates presently make up some of the highest numbers of SNAP/Medicaid recipients in the U.S., alongside fellow McDonald’s employees. 

Though Walmart executives have stated the company plans to raise wages, corporate strategy has simultaneously stated goals to automate about 65% of its warehouses and stores by the end of 2026. Amazon, Walmart’s closest competitor, has followed this practice for over a decade. It currently almost employs more robots than people, and made $638 billion last year—beating out Walmart in quarterly earnings for the very first time.

Automation is scaling across every industry. A Senate report released this month estimates that 100 million Americans could face layoffs, from retail associates and fast food employees, to accountants and lawyers. There are no concrete plans or programs in place, public or private, to otherwise reskill workers or offer assistance in the uncertain interim.

All these factors can make it feel like the

corporate world, from end to end, is quickly

becoming more distant and unattainable to

those who need it most. Like some strange,

immense craft that has been integrated into

regular life for decades, and is now detaching

from Earth. Destined to become some second

moon, orbiting the world, exerting

commercial gravity, unreachable to all but

the few who can afford the rocket ship to get

there.

On the ground, though there is a forgotten place left behind, a silent majority: the MSME (micro, small, medium enterprise), or, simply, the small business. This majority contributed almost $13 trillion to the annual GDP in 2024. They make up 99.9% of all of American businesses. They created over half of new jobs between 2013 and 2023.

In a potential future where corporate automation may replace nearly 60% of the American

workforce, in an age where many communities have become reliant on corporations as

consumers and workers, the question hangs above: where will people go?

As it turns out, Main Street and its many corner stores may have the room, potential, and real

life that people have been searching for. And it doesn’t take a rocket ship to get there. More often

than not, it’s just a walk away.

“You can always work at Walmart.”

“If AI continues to advance to the point where it can replace  a large swath of white collar jobs, the savings will be more  than enough to pay back the investment…”. (The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition, September 27th-29th, 2025). 

U.S. companies like OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft are asking for over $1 trillion in public and private investment for AI data centers in the next five years. Financial analysts at firms like Sequoia Capital estimate that the entire market will need to generate $800 billion for the investments made between 2023 and 2024 alone. In 2024, revenue from the global generative AI sector was estimated at about $45 billion — a small fraction of the trillions in investment currently pouring into AI infrastructure.

For a frame of reference—this would be equivalent to a local business asking for a $1 million loan, when it’s only projected to make $45k this year, after it should have made $800k last year. That’s a 94.4% deficit between expected revenue, and actual revenue.

These figures haven’t stopped the federal government or private investors from pouring hundreds of billions into AI products. Though recent lackluster results—like OpenAI’s “underwhelming” release of ChatGPT-5—have made backers squeamish.

There is a silver lining, however: automation is potentially on track to save the AI industry, and its investors, billions.

Amazon is worth special consideration. The mega-corporation has diversified into everything from online retail, to sports broadcasting, to automated corner stores where users can pay via Amazon account, debit card, or palm scan.

Companies and products can often set the tone for their competitors and the markets they inhabit. Like the iPhone was to Nokia, so Amazon is to Walmart—and Netflix, and Apple, and Bitcoin.

A company like Amazon, which is on track to dominate multiple key markets, has no reason not to invest in automation across the board. It has seen continued success—already reducing labor costs by ~25%, with over 1 million robots currently improving efficiency and delivery times.

According to a report obtained by The New York Times, automation could eliminate 160,000 U.S. jobs, potentially saving ~$10B if next-gen warehouses scale faster. 

Amazon’s vast reach means not just one or two industries, but many now face pressure to adopt automation to keep up. Competitors ranging from Walmart to Netflix are now incentivized to automate wherever possible, in order to stay in the game. From stocking robots to AI actresses, shedding human labor is a golden road to easy profit maximization. What’s more, with the $1 trillion+ price tag artificial intelligence expenditures are wracking up, these layoffs are no longer unfortunate shifts in market demand, but now a key part of the investment strategy to help offset costs.

It should be noted as well that the first populations affected by automation are some of the most

vulnerable to its financial repercussions. The Black unemployment rate in the United States has

surged to 7.5%, its highest level since 2021.

Women also face disproportionate consequences as automation advances. They make up 56.5%

of retail workers, 54.7% of food service workers, and nearly half of all corporate entry-level

employees–while only occupying 29% of C-suite positions. Given estimates of all employees in

each of those sectors, between 22.8 - 45.6 million women could be facing unemployment.

Unless the trend of automation reverses or collapses, hundreds of millions of workers in the United States could face unemployment. And because this automation will affect 60% of jobs across the skilled-unskilled labor spectrum, there may be nowhere to go for the growing numbers of unemployed. The phrase, “You can always work at Walmart”, may soon become as archaic as, “Find me in the phone book.”

So—what comes next?

"When life gives ya lemons..."

There is a lemonade stand in Michigan that pays its employees more than Walmart could ever afford to.

Detroit Lemonade Company, a two-stand MoTown operation run by Matt Ruzzin, pays a median wage of $25/hour. It can gross $360k during a season between its two stands, and though total employee counts are not readily available, promotional videos show about 3-5 employees per stand.

Walmart, the largest company by revenue in the world, would need to gross $2 trillion to pay its store associates the same. That’s about 3x higher than any modern company—except for the infamous and leviathan Dutch East India Company—has ever made.

The math tells a simple story: no matter how big Walmart becomes, it will not be able to pay most of its workers a living wage. It’s currently the largest employer in the US. Examine the wages of other top employers, and a huge problem begins to take shape: how can Americans reinvest into the economy if they’re not paid adequately.

American consumer spending drives 70% of the economy. A majority of these consumers are living month-to-month. Credit card, auto loan, and BNPL delinquencies are rising. Credit card debt has reached record levels; household savings are at record lows. It’s been common in the past six months to see multiple news stories about consumers using loans to pay for groceries.

If small businesses like Detroit Lemonade Co. Can afford to pay its employees liveable wages that allow them to put money back into the economy—what is it doing that Walmart, McDonald’s, or Amazon isn’t?

The answer may be one of scale. Walmart, Amazon, and other mega-corporations are operating or approaching at scales so large some have called them, “planned economies”. They have become cornerstones of global infrastructure—but their size and scope that makes them valuable on the world stage ultimately hurts them at the local level.  Walmart’s operating costs in 2025 alone total $650 billion. That’s more than the combined 2025 budgets of 9 US government agencies.

Afterwards, they’d still have $1 billion left over. For further reference, taking the lowest budget in the list—the Small Business Administration—at its current allocation, the amount of money it takes to run Walmart could fund the entire Small Business Administration for 54 years.

This is the ultimate crux of the issue. Mega-corporations have become vital to the global infrastructure, operating on budgets the size of small countries, despite their expansion hurting consumer buying power. If consumer spending does make up for 70% of the national economy, then companies at the local level must be able to pay a liveable wage. Otherwise the very economies these corporations depend on at scale will inevitably suffer fatal collapse under an increasing credit strain supporting their costs.

Scale may not be the end of the issue, however. In the wake of another impending recession,

with the job market in a slump not seen in 50 years, many sources are quick to point out how the

U.S. economy is currently buoyed by the top 10% of consumers. These observations come in

tandem with consistent reports of stocks reaching new highs nearly every week, sometimes

multiple times a week.

Looking at these numbers, it looks like the extraction of wealth from the majority to the minority is no accident. In this environment, the expansion of mega-corporations and other hugely profitable firms is a feature of capitalism, not a bug. These titanic structures seem responsible for one thing and one thing only: strip-mining the population for wealth.

Official, though obscure, sources confirm as much. A CitiGroup paper from 2005 argued the

United States was a “plutonomy”—an economy “powered by the wealthy”. The paper states,

“The rich are getting richer; they dominate spending. Their trend of getting richer looks unlikely

to end anytime soon. How do we make money on this theme?” The authors further remark:

“... the earth is not going to be shaken of its axis, and sucked into the cosmos by these

‘imbalances’. The earth is being held up by the muscular arms of its entrepreneur-plutocrats,

like it, or not.”

This is not the opinion of fringe financial theorists. The authors of the paper are CitiGroup

analysts. At the time, CitiGroup was the world’s most profitable financial services company with

$1.5 trillion in assets. A leader in economic thought at the vanguard of Western capitalism.

(It should be noted that CitiGroup received about $350 billion in funds from the TARP program

to secure its toxic assets during the 2008 Financial Crisis, less than three years after this paper

was written).

One paper does not speak for the financial industry, or the entire structure of capitalism.

However, it is difficult to ignore that the actions of corporations and the wealthy certainly

appear to align with a plutonomic ethos.

So some questions arise: How can a system that is dependent on majority buy-in from the

public, both politically and financially, continue? If economic downturns consistently divert

funds from the public trust into the hands of the rich, whose personal analysts are advocating for

societies where the rich “dominate”–what reason is there for anyone not in the top 10% to

participate?

The bottom line forms: consumers and workers alike need a space to call their own, where they

can exchange goods and services and insulate themselves from the constant vicissitudes of

plutonomic adherents . This begs another question: where is that place?

The Return to Main Street

Today, the United States is seeing a pattern echoed by earlier eras: when systems fail to meet local needs, people go where they can work and live within their means.

Over the last decade, young Americans have been priced out of major cities at unprecedented rates. Fifteen million people under 35 now live with their parents. The median age of a first-time homebuyer has climbed from 31 in 2015 to 40 today. Recent graduates face an unemployment rate higher than the national average, while nearly half of U.S. small businesses say they cannot find employees.

This convergence—the urban squeeze, a stalled job market, and rural labor shortages—has created an unexpected demographic shift: a highly educated, Internet-fluent generation returning to small towns not because they want to, but because economic conditions leave few alternatives.

Unlike previous “back to the land” movements, this cohort brings a different set of tools. Many grew up online, learned digital skills in school, and have experimented with e-commerce, freelancing, or social media entrepreneurship. Living at home often reduces major costs like rent and groceries, giving them more disposable income and more freedom to take risks.

In 2024, an estimated $1.8 quadrillion in transaction value moved through the Internet. Capturing just 1% of that—$18 trillion—would be enough to fund the entire U.S. Small Business Administration for a decade. Meanwhile, surveys show that 80% of displaced young workers say they plan to start an online business, and nearly half expect to open a physical location as they grow. Fourteen million Gen Z and Millennial Americans already operate micro-businesses, and both groups comprise the majority of social media users populating platforms like instagram and TikTok. Recent data suggests that at least 80% of Millenials and Gen Zers use social media and influencer marketing to inform their buying decisions, and over 50% of purchases occur directly on social media. Taken together, these patterns suggest an underreported trend: a generation of young digital workers, many pushed out of high-cost cities, is now quietly building micro-enterprises from childhood bedrooms and kitchen tables across the country.

With mega-corporations automating and consolidating, both small businesses and young people risk being left behind. But they also represent an overlooked path forward. If even a small fraction of the $1.8 quadrillion flowing through the digital economy were captured locally, Main Streets across the country could see meaningful revitalization.

The Future of Main Street is Female

As young people return home and Main Street faces chronic labor shortages, the businesses most prepared to absorb and sustain this new workforce are overwhelmingly women-led. Women-owned firms are already building the exact kinds of workplaces young workers say they want to be part of: flexible, community-rooted, and humane.

According to the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC), there are 14 million women-owned businesses in the United States today—representing ~40% of all U.S. businesses as of 2023. A decade ago, this would have been unthinkable. Now, women own nearly two in five businesses in America, and the number is still rising.

Women-of-color are the fastest-growing segment. Data from the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) shows that in 2018, 47% of all women-owned businesses were owned by women of color, a figure that has only grown as barriers to digital entrepreneurship have fallen.

These firms may not resemble the corporations dominating stock tickers, yet they form the living architecture of Main Street—running bakeries, home-based studios, wellness practices, photography shops, daycare centers, design firms, tutoring services, cafés, craft businesses, and small online stores with global reach. Individually, many are modest; collectively, they are a force to be reckoned with.

And they have a vision for a different kind of economy.

A growing body of evidence shows that women-owned businesses are far more likely to adopt policies centered on care, fairness, and community well-being. EY’s “Societal Value of Women-Led Businesses” finds women founders overwhelmingly prioritize flexible scheduling, remote and hybrid work, family-oriented benefits, and long-term workforce stability as the structural backbone of the companies they build.

Deloitte’s Women @ Work 2023 survey echoes this: companies led by women are more likely to offer paid parental leave, childcare support, ethical supply chains, ESG-driven practices, and transparent pay structures. They report higher employee engagement, lower turnover, and healthier workplace cultures. Women leaders are also “twice as likely” to drive community-focused initiatives and social responsibility agendas, changing the landscape of Main Street far beyond the walls of their own businesses.

Taken together, these findings point to a profound but underrecognized reality: women-owned businesses are not only growing in number—they are reshaping what the American economy can look like when it’s built around care rather than extraction.

Sara Blakely, the Accidental Capital Reformer

Sara Blakely's story begins in the suburbs of Clearwater, Florida, selling fax machines door-to-door in heels that blistered her feet. Long before Spanx became a billion-dollar empire, she was a young woman driving from office park to office park in a second-hand car, rehearsing product pitches into her steering wheel. Every night she would return home, pull out a pair of scissors, and cut the feet off her pantyhose—an improvised hack that would eventually disrupt an entire industry. She wrote the first Spanx patent herself. She cold-called factories. She packed orders from her apartment floor. And when the company finally took off, she did something almost unheard of in the world she had just entered: she turned her fortune outward.

During the pandemic, Blakely donated $5 million to women-owned businesses crushed by lockdowns. She built the Sara Blakely Foundation, aimed at lifting up girls and entrepreneurs who face the same locked doors she once had to bust her way through. She became the first self-made female billionaire to sign the Giving Pledge, committing half her wealth to causes that strengthen the communities corporate America routinely overlooks. In an era when success is often a launchpad to outer space—Blakely refused to allow her business growth loosen her grasp on reality. The higher she rose, the more she rooted herself downward, into the infrastructure of women’s economic survival. If the corporate technocrats dream of becoming a second moon, Blakely became something else entirely: gravity.

But Sara Blakely isn’t the only one revolutionizing the economic blueprints handed down by the old guard. Across the country, other women business owners are laying the foundations for an economy that looks nothing like the iron-clad structures of Wall Street.

Together, these women are mapping out a different Main Street: one stitched with childcare networks, community wages, dignified labor, and success measured by sustainability rather than scale.

From Monoliths to Microbusinesses

“This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism." -Joseph Schumpeter, economist and Austrian Finance Minister

A quiet truth emerges from beneath the noise of collapsing markets and skyrocketing valuations: something in the old economic order is ending. But what’s rising in its place looks less like a monolith and more like a neighborhood.

There’s a saying in the Midwest: “There’s enough out there for everybody.” For decades, that sounded naïve—an artifact of a gentler economy. Yet the numbers tell a different story. There is enough for people to live well. Enough for businesses to grow. Enough for Main Street to thrive even as corporate America builds its castles on the moon.

Because the era we’re leaving behind—the one built on limitless consolidation, corporate monocultures, and extractive growth—is losing its gravitational pull. Consumers and workers are no longer orbiting around scale for scale’s sake. They’re gravitating toward sustainability, toward fairness, toward enterprises that treat people as stakeholders rather than expendable inputs.

The future of the American economy isn’t a single towering giant; it’s thousands of small lights visible from space. Micro-enterprises, worker-centered SMEs, equity-driven companies that prioritize care and community over quarterly earnings. These are the businesses consistently outperforming their weight class and rebuilding the centers where people actually live their lives.

The corner store is seeing a revival—online and offline, in cities and small towns, in co-ops, kitchens, studios, and community markets. Alternative economic structures are taking shape across the country, ensuring the survival of creativity and livelihoods well beyond the blitzscaling multi-billion dollar empires of the elite.

And if you're wondering where to find them, they've always been there. All you need to do is look, just around the corner.