Regardless of whether the wages are competitive or not, if Kroger chooses to not budget sufficient hours and adequately staff departments, then things aren't going to really improve a whole lot in stores. Non-competitive wages have always been part of the problem at Kroger, but consistently understaffing departments all the while piling on more and more work without additional budgeted hours has been and continues to be a significant reason so much goes wrong/gets left undone.

Higher, more competitive wages are a part of the solution, yes, but you can't just raise wages and expect everything to suddenly run smoothly and be hunky-dory. That's not realistic. I do think some of the people running this company understand and realize that, but they are simply too focused on the short term (maximizing profits in the here and now) and not focused enough on the long-term (what should be done now to make sure the company is bigger, stronger and, yes, richer, ten years from now).

To fix all of what's wrong now in the many, many stores that Kroger owns over the course of the next year or two would require a massive financial investment and Kroger is not willing to make that commitment - despite the fact that if done right, the company would start seeing massive returns on its investment within five years and leave the company in a better overall state come ten years from now. That's the big picture, though, and Kroger chooses to not look at it - and today, you see the consequences of that short-sightedness, be it at the store level or in the share price of the stock or the projections in new store openings (here's a hint: that number keeps getting revised down, rather than revised up - not the direction you want to be heading).