As Americans struggle with the cost of living, many are turning to Walmart to save. The discount retailer said it’s especially seeing growth among higher-income shoppers.
“The majority of our share gains came from households making more than $100,000,” John Furner, who took over as CEO at the start of February, said Thursday morning on a call with Wall Street analysts. “For households earning below $50,000, we continue to see that wallets are stretched. And in some cases, people are managing spending paycheck to paycheck.”
It aligns with a pattern experts are calling a K-shaped economy. The wealthy, benefiting from stock market gains and higher wage growth, are driving an outsize share of consumer spending.
Meanwhile, many on the lower end of the “K” are finding their paychecks can’t keep up with rising costs of food, housing, utilities and child care, even with wage growth.
Labor market data released earlier this month showed the U.S. added almost no jobs in 2025, and while hiring appeared solid in January, the jury’s still out on whether more robust job growth will return. Prices in January rose 2.4% compared with a year earlier, higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target but at a slower rate than in the past few months.
Walmart, which has a reputation for discounts, is traditionally seen as a bellwether for the U.S. economy and consumer confidence. On Thursday, executives pointed to a so-called hiring recession, lower consumer sentiment and student loan delinquencies as reasons to be cautious about the future.
Other retailers that also traditionally cater to lower-income Americans are seeing more growth among higher-income shoppers and are increasingly reliant on them.
Dollar Tree said at the end of last year that around 60% of its new shoppers came from households earning more than $100,000. Discount grocer Aldi has been drawing in higher-income shoppers seeking value — and plans to open 180 new stores this year.
Consumers have also had to navigate price hikes on many goods as a result of President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs on major U.S. trading partners. An analysis last week from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found consumers and businesses paid nearly 90% of the tariff costs.
But Walmart’s chief financial officer, John David Rainey, said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg that tariff-driven inflation has reached or is reaching its peak. That’s a big contrast to comments last month from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who said in an interview with CNBC that tariffs are starting to “creep into some of the prices.”
Walmart announced Thursday that same-store sales for its Walmart U.S. business rose 4.6% in the quarter that ended Jan. 31, exceeding analysts’ expectations. The company’s stock fell nearly 1.4%, as its profit forecast for the year came in under Wall Street’s estimates.
Walmart earlier this month hit a major milestone: It became the first traditional brick-and-mortar retailer to reach a $1 trillion market valuation, joining a handful of other U.S. companies, mostly in tech.
But on Thursday, it lost its status as the biggest global company by revenue to rival Amazon. Fortune also said Thursday that Amazon would overtake Walmart as the top company on the Fortune 500 list.
Walmart has recently made moves to position itself as a tech-forward competitor to Amazon, switching from trading on the New York Stock Exchange to the tech-heavy Nasdaq in December and investing more in artificial intelligence.
The company noted that inventory and labor are its largest costs and that technology including AI would help it grow at a lower cost. The company last year said it planned to cut 1,500 corporate jobs in a restructuring.
“The way we’re using technology and AI is helping us create great customer solutions, reduce friction, simplify decision-making and pinpoint where our inventory is, all while maintaining the trust we’ve earned from our customers and members,” said Furner.
