Jul 12, 2026
Tony Barzar started at Price Club — the warehouse retailer that would later become Costco — in 1986, gathering shopping carts in a Tucson parking lot for $5.85 an hour. Four decades later, he earns $32.90 an hour as a cashier, owns a three-bedroom home with a pool, has traveled to Europe twice and has accumulated over $1 million in his 401(k).
“I could retire,” Barzar, now 60, told The Wall Street Journal. “But what would I do? Costco has been good to me.”
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His story is less about a stroke of luck than it is the financial arithmetic of staying put at a company that makes doing so worthwhile: steady pay increases, a generous 401(k) and healthcare coverage so comprehensive that when his wife was diagnosed with stage 3 brain cancer, the company’s insurance covered the full cost of three brain surgeries.
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The math behind a millionaire’s retail career
Barzar’s path to seven figures from a retail career required time, consistency and an employer whose compensation philosophy runs counter to most of the retail industry.
When Price Club moved to Costco’s 401(k) plan in 1993, Barzar began contributing a small portion of each paycheck to an account administered by T. Rowe Price. He kept contributing over the decades as his hourly pay steadily climbed — from around $10 an hour as a cashier in the 1990s to the $32.90 he earns today. Compound growth did the rest.
Barzar isn’t alone. According to The WSJ, Costco CFO Gary Millerchip said “many thousands” of the company’s U.S. hourly workers have 401(k) balances exceeding $1 million.
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What makes Costco different
The WSJ reports Costco recently raised its hourly ceiling to $32.90 for its most tenured workers and has sweetened its package further with a larger annual bonus and additional paid vacation for employees who hit the 30-year mark.
The underlying logic is that the cost of keeping experienced workers is lower than constantly replacing them. That’s a bet the company’s founders made decades ago and one that Barzar’s career now illustrates in concrete financial terms.
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And the retention results are telling. According to the WSJ, Costco’s turnover after one year of employment runs around 7% — a fraction of the retail industry’s typical 60% annual churn.
The company’s healthcare benefits operate similarly. Barzar’s Costco-sponsored plan carries a $15 co-pay for primary care visits and $25 for specialist appointments — well below the national average of $27 and $45, respectively, according to the KFF 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey.
When something went catastrophically wrong in Barzar’s family — his son-in-law’s death and his wife’s cancer diagnosis arriving within months of each other — the coverage held. He took paid leave for nearly a year to care for his family. He also used the company’s therapy benefits to cope. He returned to work part-time without a pay cut.
“You don’t have any idea how deep it goes until something tragic happens,” he told the WSJ.
What to look for and what to ask of a job
Not every hourly worker has access to Costco-level benefits or tenure. But Barzar’s trajectory offers a solid framework for evaluating any employer: the financial tools that build wealth over time — like consistent contributions to a tax-advantaged retirement account, employer matching and comprehensive healthcare — are most powerful when the employers make using them possible from day one.
When considering a job offer, the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants advises asking specifically whether there’s a 401(k) match, what percentage is matched, and critically, how long the vesting period is — meaning how long you must stay before the employer’s contributions are fully yours.
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A company that matches 6% is offering meaningfully more than one that matches 1%. Mployer’s benefits analysis estimates that difference compounds to more than $20,000 over just five years on an $80,000 salary, and that’s before accounting for investment returns.
On healthcare, Human Interest recommends asking not just whether coverage is offered, but what the out-of-pocket maximum is, if hourly or part-time workers qualify and whether benefits begin immediately or after a waiting period.
These details are the difference between saving or spending thousands of dollars in year one, and Barzar’s experience shows what comprehensive coverage looks like when something catastrophic happens.
Finally, turnover is a useful proxy for how an employer actually treats its workers over time. Companies with consistently low turnover tend to have that rate for a reason, and it often shows up in the compensation package.
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With a writing and editing career spanning over 15 years, Emma creates and refines content across a broad spectrum of industries, including personal finance, lifestyle, travel, health & wellness, real estate, beauty & fitness and B2B/SaaS/tech.
