Posted on 12/29/2018 6:41:14 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
It has become an increasingly common story: A dollar store opens up in an economically depressed area with scarce healthy and affordable food options, sometimes with the help of local tax incentives. It advertises hard-to-beat low prices but it offers little in terms of fresh produce and nutritious items—further trapping residents in a cycle of poverty and ill-health.
A recent research brief by the Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit supporting local economies, sheds light on the massive growth of this budget enterprise. Since 2001, outlets of Dollar General and Dollar Tree (which bought Family Dollar in 2015) have grown from 20,000 to 30,000 in number. Though these “small-box” retailers carry only a limited stock of prepared foods, they’re now feeding more people than grocery chains like Whole Foods, which has around 400-plus outlets in the country.
In fact, the number of dollar-store outlets nationwide exceeds that of Walmart and McDonalds put together — and they’re still growing at a breakneck pace. That, ILSR says, is bad news.
“While dollar stores sometimes fill a need in cash-strapped communities, growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress,” the authors of the brief write. “They’re a cause of it.”
Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces — white flight, the recent recession, the so-called “retail apocalypse” — all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Interesting Chart,
Thanks.
Fresh, healthy food is expensive and has a short shelf life. Processed food made from heavily subsidized grain crops are fattening, cheap, and last forever.
I have on multiple occasions had to tell a very overweight checker what a fruit or vegetable was. It is simply amazing how many people there are that can’t even identify food unless it comes out of a box. Put all the high end grocery stores you want in front of these people and they are still going to go for the box of instant Mac and cheese.
When I think of all those folks who used to shop at the same Texas T I used to ... how downtrodden, unartisanbreaded and unwined we all were!
Progressives are never without a good whine.
I agree that the local Dollar General is nasty. But when I need a 50 cent birthday card or a pair of work gloves that I intend to use once and throw away, DG is my stop.
Sure, I could go two miles to the Hallmark store and spend $5 for a card someone will glance at once and throw away, or a mile to my choice of a Lowes, Home Depot, or Super Walmart for the gloves and pay more, but I can be in and out of the DG with the gloves in the amount of time I can walk the parking lot at the big boxes, and I’d likely pay more there.
“Your majesty, the people have no bread....”
“Let them eat SALAD!”
We just got a Dollar Tree in my small town of 2,000 or so. It’s one block away from the Super-Duper Walmart.
The lot is always full. I will stop there for paper goods (TP, Kleenex, Paper towels), laundry soap, dish soap and other necessary things that get used up quickly.
I have no solutions to the ‘food desert’ problem, other than to say it’s SOP for Liberal-run areas, as far as I can see.
I have shopped Dollar Tree, in all areas of the country, for some years and I cannot relate to the description of them, and other Dollar type stores, as being a scourage or blight on local communities. Only in recent years have they started carrying frozen produce and I can see an advantage to those who want something for lunch or one item needed that saves a trip to a grocery store. Also, Dollar Tree has been locating stores near Walmart, as does Aldis’s. Walmart, Dollar Tree, Aldie’s, a cluster that can save a bunch of dollars and keeps customers happy. The Dollar General stores have a related market and we are seeing them everywhere, rural and in areas where no other grocery stores or any other type of store is available. I think that these DG franchises are being oversold and not a good investment in the long run. For now, there is a need for quick trip and convenience stores and if that is where the public wants to shop they will continue to be built. I think this article is self serving and just another attempt to get govt money to subsidize areas that destroy commercial attempts to serve them with needed items, food, clothing, etc. It is hard to sympathize with those who destroy efforts to help them. They victimize themselves.
What is NEUS?
Cheap processed food combined with a welfare state has now caused a situation where the poorest people are actually the most likely to be obese, something that has never happened before. They are also the most entertained poor people ever and the least physically active. It’s like a sci-fi dystopian story. It’s hard to imagine any sort of civil unrest while these conditions exist.
Freegards
I forgot to mention greeting cards!
I found wonderful, sentimental, Christian (!) Christmas Cards for my three BFFs this year - 50 cents each, Hallmark brand. Glitter, embossing and everything, LOL! Usually those cards are $3.50 and up.
If I am not in a rush, I will take the time to browse the greeting cards. Super-cheap, nice selection, and as I said, brand-name cards. They also sell a lot of good books (remainders, of course) but they’re always in ‘Like New’ condition and as a Crossword Puzzle ADDICT (thanks to my Grandpa) I can get a book of 80 puzzles for a buck.
Happy, Happy! :)
I suggest a new chain of “dollar” stores...DIN-DO-NUFFIN/FERAL. At DDNF nothing is sold...all is stolen. It just might catch on in some areas. What a great opportunity for the right investor.
The ghetto dwellers create their own “food deserts”
IIRC a few years ago Trader Joe’s tried to open a store in a “disadvantaged” area of Portland, OR. Instead of welcoming a retailer that would sell them healthy food at reasonable prices, the local “community leaders” demanded what amounted to bribes. TJ said thanks, but no thanks and pulled out. And that is why poor people have to shop at 7-11 and liquor stores.
The poor in this country suffer from diseases of obesity. Something prior to now thought to be a historical impossibility. I would argue this problem contributes to the opioid epidemic. Obesity causes a myriad of back, joint, etc. problems where pain is the primary symptom & something to control it the primary treatment.
Aldi’s is great, *except* for their dairy case. I’ve bought milk from them twice: both times it congealed before the pull date.
But their grass-fed beef is off-scale good.
And their produce is good too.
Dann you autocorrect for changing Aldi’s to Ali’s without telling me. Unless you’re trying to tell me something else...(Aldi’s is based in Germany under Frau Merkel)
NEUS: Northeast US.
North East United States (NEUS)
Logistics, son, logistics. You can only carry so many groceries on a bus: which means more trips —> time and/or more $$ for multiple round trips. And then there’s the matter of perishables.
Thanks
That’s a good point. Also, unlike all of recorded history, our poorest are generally sedentary and have been for a while now. There’s a lot of folks who entered middle age who have never been in shape, ever. That brings its own physical problems, especially as they get older.
Freegards
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