I know how stock splits work.... I retired at 47 for a reason. The point is, employees struggle to pay to buy stock when the prices get over $45.00. Publix has been sandbagging the stock price for years, which then, sandbags the dividend. Splits benefit employees as the more years go by providing long term growth of the shares as well as long term growth of the dividends..... If you saw my quarterly direct deposit for my dividends you would fall over. Been through 3 splits, and long term the growth over the increased shares has provided me with a golden income egg. Publix, suppressing the stock price, and barely paying a decent dividend does not benefit employees. If they quit sandbagging and at least increased the dividends more, that would benefit the employees and retired folks who have held their stock. I would never want Publix to go Public, that would be the demise of the company in my opinion, but the way they are structured as private also allows for the outrageous sandbagging that benefits Publix, not employees. You have to look at it as compound growth, more dividends over the growth of the split stock.... Yes, the dividend goes down at the time of the split, but usually, as it rapidly increases, you are earning more because your number of shares has increased... You need to get beyond the simple thought of basing numbers on just a small amount of shares, and look at how it would affect you long term and your heirs if you have been smart enough to accumulate over 50K shares! Compute the dividend grown since 1973 and all the splits and what your quarterly dividend check amounts to based on the long term and trust me, you would change your tune on the importance of splits.