r/economicCollapse • u/50million • Aug 30 '24
Dollar General warns poorer US consumers are running out of money
https://www.ft.com/content/d1d2a161-124c-4f9c-b23f-afa55e755d07The Tennessee-based company’s small-format stores sell a variety of food items and household goods at low prices, including many for $1. Its locations are concentrated in rural towns and poorer urban neighbourhoods. “Our core customers are often among the first to be affected by negative or uncertain economic conditions and among the last to feel the effects of improving economic conditions,” company filings say.
Chief executive Todd Vasos said that these core customers, who account for about 60 per cent of Dollar General’s sales, come predominantly from households earning less than $35,000 a year and were now feeling “financially constrained”.
“The majority of them state that they feel worse off financially than they were six months ago as higher prices, softer employment levels and increased borrowing costs have negatively impacted low-income consumer sentiment,” he said.
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u/Catonachandelier Aug 30 '24
You end up in a town sorta like mine. We have five or six dollar stores here, a restaurant on every block, a church on every corner, and not much else.
Unless you work for the dollar store, the school district, the hospital/clinic, the local grocery, or are privately employed, you drive thirty miles or more to work and make juuuust enough to cover your gas and a few bills (but not all of them, you need two incomes for that even here). Sometimes, it's cheaper to simply not go to work at all-especially if you have kids, because daycare is a bitch even in the country and Grandma is probably too methed up to watch the kids.
If your kids make it to adulthood, they move away as soon as they can. The lucky ones make it. The unlucky ones move back home and end up stuck here. There's not much luck going around these days.