How Dollar Stores Conquered America - Cheddar Explains

Dollar stores have conquered the United States, in an era where a “retail apocalypse” is slowly decimating brick and mortar retail shopping. The spread of these dollar stores is also deeply tied to issues of income inequality in the U.S. It’s argued that not only do these institutions benefit from poverty, but also that they perpetuate it. It has even led to some communities to limit the spread of dollar stores in their towns. So how did the dollar store conquer the U.S. - and what is their real impact?

SOURCES:

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Dollar General

The Washington Post

Visual Capitalist

ProPublica / The New Yorker

CNN Business

Mental Floss

Britannica


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[jabber]

"more people grocery shop at dollar stores than whole foods"

not saying much when I don't know anyone who shops at Whole Foods

[QuestionEverythingButWHY]

"Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor."
--James Baldwin

[tealmer]

Of course they target low-income neighborhoods. For someone living paycheck to paycheck, they need to buy in smaller amounts. It's expensive to be poor.

[moomoomooass]

But as a former store manager, it’s the worst place to work for! I got a salary of 50k and I was fine with that. But after 5 weeks of training, when I got my own store, reality hit. I was always understaffed and wasn’t approved to hire additional employees. Also, I was expected to work at least 65-70 hours a week, doing most of the stocking. I routinely was there 6-7 days a week. Keep in mind since everything cost a dollar, when the truck came, there would be over 1000 cases of product to stock once or twice a week! %90 of my time was spent stocking while I’d have a couple employees to run checkout. And the employees I had were always terrible because I could only pay minimum wage. Dollar tree is a terrible company that expects you to live at the store and neglect your family. Trust me, it’s a soul sucking company that even treats store managers like slaves. Don’t EVER work there unless you want a salary that seems good, until you see how many hours you have to work. Break down your pay by hour if you make 50K and you are working for peanuts! After 70 hour weeks, it broke down to $13 a hour!!! You can start at an amazon warehouse as a kid and make $15 an hour with zero experience! And with 15 years of management experience, for me this was a joke! A total scam! I quit after 2 months having my own store! Found a different store manager job at $50k and I work a normal 40 hours a week! And I’m properly staffed and I can pay employees more than minimum wage, so I can get quality people that won’t quit in a few months! Dollar tree is all about stock prices and investors! Nothing else.

[possiblyadog]

As a poor person, the secret to being a smart and healthy shopper is to use grocery stores for select foods and produce and use dollar stores for everything else. There are definitely things you can get for cheaper at a dollar store vs a grocery store. But, any foods you buy in a dollar store will be loaded with sugar and carbs. If you are only eating dollar store food, you don't have a balanced diet.

[DAndyLord]

I hate how the interviewee says "they target low income neighbourhoods, and neighbourhoods of colour". Why TF would they target a wealthy sAsian neighbourhood? Those people are rich, they'll just go to Costco to stock up. They do target poor white/black/mixed race/whatever neighbourhoods, because poor people can't afford to buy 20L if washing detergent.

There are plenty of dollar stores in poor sAsian 'hoods around me. And almost none in the wealthy sAsian areas.

It's expensive to be poor.

[SuperPlayz]

I respect Dollar Tree for having at least having everything a dollar

[johndoeanon]

"Dollar Stores are most common in low-income areas"

* Suprised pikachu face *

[LittleRadicalThinker]

It's more expensive to be poor, unless you are poor enough to have government to take care of you.

[quito]

The dollar stores fulfill a need. Take them away and where will people on a budget go?

[phills]

I lived in a small depressed town in Western PA that ticked all the points on the list: Walmart comes in on edge of town, too far to walk, which killed the local grocery store that was in the heart of town, easily walkable. Dollar General comes in and builds a location right by the old grocery store/now farm goods store. You could feel the relief that people had that they again had a place they could just run to for quick stops without making the drive to Walmart.
Is their pricing structure predatory? 100% should they provide fresh fruits and veggies? 150% should we ban them outright? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Housewarmin]

I don’t get Dollar General...nothing is a dollar! At least at Dollar Tree everything is a dollar

[ogorangeduck]

There's a channel called TheWolfePit which makes videos about cooking good meals with dollar store ingredients and also talks about the unfairness of dollar store quantities (4 oz of chicken for a dollar, or 12 oz for 2 dollars, but some can't afford that extra dollar so they get trapped)

[uru]

I love how that protest at 9:22 was all clearly upper middle class white people who are wearing L.L. Bean gear. Great job, Cheddar...

[Tim.]

I'm not entirely sure what to think about this. It seems like everyone, including the dollar stores themselves, agrees that they aren't a suitable replacement for actual grocery stores. But limiting the spread of dollar stores won't necessarily bring more grocery stores to these neighborhoods. I'd love to see Cheddar do a video taking a broader look at policy proposals to address food deserts / retail redlining.

[keithkaitlinreynolds]

I think another important factor is that while it is higher cost per measurable unit, some folks can't afford the upfront cost of something that's a better deal in the long-term. You afford what you cam when you can.

[chadwickhjones]

My family members who live in the south like dollar stores, because they don't want to have to go to a giant supermarket and feel overwhelmed.

[vnceigz]

• Of course it makes sense that dollarstores would be built at a higher density in poor areas than in rich ones. Duh. ¬_¬
• How would poor communities be better off without dollarstores, how would they fare better if they were replaced with expensive grocery stores (or car lots or whatever else ends up in that space)? 🤨 No, blocking a dollarstore from opening won't result in a cheap grocery store opening there instead, it'll be a regular or expensive grocery store or something else.
• Nobody sells steaks for $1. 🙄
• BTW, dollarstores are like other stores, some items are terrible deals and some are great deals; it's up to the customer to figure out which is which, so if the detergent can only do six loads (6‽ 🤨), then don't get that, get the 730g tin of Max1.5 coffee for $2.5 and get the 96-load Sunlight detergent for $6 elsewhere. Duh. Sure, it's more convenient to make only one stop, especially if you have to take public-transportation, but that's why you have to plan your trips to maximize time and money. Until you get rich and can afford the luxury of wasting time and money, you'll just have to make it work like plenty of people do.
• The bit about grocery stores being unable to get capital to open in poor neighborhoods is the most salient part of this video. (Another factor is that capitalism inherently rewards greed, hence why so many stores have absurdly high marked-up prices. 😒)

[MichaelWhitman]

I made a video about this in seattle. If you live by one of these stores it's definitely not a good area to live

[draxgoodall]

I live in a village of 1200 people. The closet grocery store is 20 miles away and the closest walmart is almost 50 miles away. The only two businesses are a local gas station (which does really well) and Dollar General. Dollar General is serving my comments that no other business would even consider. Im pretty glad i have one so close