https://www.ft.com/content/d1d2a161-124c-4f9c-b23f-afa55e755d07
Discount retailer says low-income households feel more ‘financially constrained’ than six months ago
Paywall removed: https://archive.is/SLMtR
Dollar General is cancer. Their prices are no better than somewhere like Walmart, the only "good" thing is the convenience, I feel like I can't drive ten minutes without passing one
Their prices are no better than somewhere like Walmart,
And their products are smaller. There are Dollar General sized versions. So you end up with less product per dollar spent.
Don't live in the country, huh? Sometimes they're the only general store for miles and miles and miles. They're a great fit, in that niche.
My camp is outside a town of 900 souls. There's a Dollar General and a gas-station/general-store/grocery. Almost never hit the DG, but it's damned nice they're there in case I need something the other place doesn't have.
In your example, in my situation, the nearest Walmarts are 45-minutes west and 30-minutes east. Double those numbers because it's a round trip. Do you really want to take my DG away and force me to spend the gas and time? If you proposed that in this town, you'd have a riot on your hands.
I'd prefer an independently owned small store, as someone who installs cash register systems for independently owned stores primarily in rural West Virginia.
the only “good” thing is the convenience
How many party favors and discount happy meal toys do you purchase?
Don't you remember? They gave us all like $2500 or something one time. That's enough to live on for at least a decade for the poors.
I got "unemployed" during Covid and saw everyone bragging about how awesome it was that the federal government was providing extra money and it was like working a good job...
My state let me know they had run out of unemployment insurance several decades ago and I would get just the federal money, reduced down to the state amount, minus the state and federal tax from each check.
Yeah I got so fucked over it's still a shock that people say they legitimately came out better with more money.
bragging about how awesome it was that the federal government was providing extra money and it was like working a good job…
Revolt hush money. I'm sure this was ran through a simulation at some prior time, "how can we pacify a domestic population that might reject what we're about to do to them?" Money, of course.
You should have seen my fucking face when I was on unemployment and I found out that I had to pay income tax on my unemployment checks. Like... what the fuck? Why didn't you just give me less money to begin with?!
Yup
Edit: well with big blue cities that pride themselves on how helpful they are despite being also bullshit panderong that don't even show up to vote in local elections.
No and most didn't build up savings during the pandemic...we all went into debt or spent savings just to scrape by.
Much like 2008, the pandemic never actually ended. When schools reopened, every classroom in the nation was full of children on their 4th, 5th, 6th infection in a month. Thousands of people still drop dead from it every month and the US is, to this day, still experiencing 30% more per capita deaths than pre-pandemic.
Long COVID is proven to cause permanent organ damage, including brain function. We won’t know what it does to child development until decades from now but it’s already proven to increase risk-taking and reduce higher level function in adults.
The accumulation of capital continues.
This might be some confirmation bias, but it feels like everything has gotten a bit dumber since the pandemic and I wonder if covid effects on the brain are a part of it. Like I feel "normal" now, but I don't think this current "normal" is the same as what "normal" used to be for me. And for like 6 months after my first infection, it literally felt like my brain wasn't working as clearly as it normally did.
I did but that’s because I’d already been saving aggressively, had just lost my job, and the little entertainment budget I had left was no longer able to be used, then suddenly my unemployment benefits went up and I got stimulus money. It turned a guaranteed financial disaster into a little extra time.
A lot of people used pandemic relief funds to invest, notably in real estate. As the market returns to reality, those people are finding they're massively overextended.
A lot of people used pandemic relief funds to invest, notably in real estate.
$1400 to invest in real estate?!
I'm sure Dollar General's predatory pricing and aggressive business tactics to kill off local competition have nothing to do with it, too.
I worry this sort of news could push voters towards Republicans. The Republicans will make things much worse for low-income and middle class voters, of course. But for some reason, a lot of Americans buy into the ancient lie that Republican policies are "good for jobs and the economy".
its because they think the president just flips a magic switch right when they hit office. They don't realize policy takes time and rebups continuously sabotage shit on their way out of office.
I recently saw a video about how much better the economy was under Trump and it totally glossed over the fact that Trump was riding off of Obama's presidency and the reason why it's so bad under Biden is cuz he's been having to clean up after Trump.
Voters have the memories of a fucking goldfish.
My favorite argument regards pandemic gas prices under Trump.
"Of course gas was cheap you doorknob! No one was driving!"
That was great! Maybe we should look at ways of decreasing gas consumption.
"SOCIALIST PINKO COMMIE!"
well he does, he's just not allowed to touch until he's republican and in last year of his term
Trump's Republican Congress set lowered taxes to expire for the next, presumptive Democrat, administration.
"My taxes went up under Biden!" Yes, they did.
That's me this month... officially running out of money and all avenues of emergency funds. I realized it yesterday and still processing what my next move is to survive. Both my wife and myself have decent jobs but just can't make ends meet anymore. Final nail is kids daycare expenses. man, do I seriously wish this was over with and we would be ok... idk how people do this.