Publicly funded supermarkets?
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Anonymous
False equivalency. But thanks for playing. |
Anonymous
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There are small rural communities in more sparsely populated states where local government has established grocery stores and/or cafes to make sure these things are available, help keep money in the community, enable people to not have to drive 25 to 50 miles to buy groceries. (In some of these places, municipally-owned liquor stores or bars are the only places allowed to sell alcohol). A hired manager runs the business.
https://www.ruralgrocery.org/learn/publications/case-studies/St_Paul_Success_Story.pdf --took two seconds to find this, it's in Kansas https://www.commerce.nd.gov/community-services/community-development-rural-prosperity/cdrp-resources/cdrp-grant-programs/rural https://civileats.com/2025/08/20/op-ed-public-grocery-stores-already-exist-and-work-well-we-need-more/ |
Anonymous
I think that’s a great model. I think they break even. If city or state owned property could be leased for nominal fees, they could be an attractive option. |
Anonymous
Ah, yes, the "poor choices" theory regarding working people who struggle to get by. Yes, some people from impoverished backgrounds are ultimately wildly successful. Many are moderately successful, and for some that Wal-Mart job is a big step up from where they started. But you competely ignore the cushions people with more advantages have when they do make "poor choices." It might be help buying a house, it might be not swimming in education debt (this is a topic that comes up from time to time on r/medicine where young physicians feel like failures compared to peers who did not have to take out loans for med school or buy houses), it might be other forms of financial support. It is also practical knowledge resources. And sometimes people from well off families who make poor choices when they are young adults are able to reroute their lives because of family resources when coming from another family, they'd be homeless. Besides which, financial and other setbacks which have minimal consequence for people who are not poor can be catastrophic for those who are. There is solid research that poverty, and the stresses of poverty, affect cognition itself, which then affects choices. This is not specifically stress, it's more involved than that. The impact can be equivalent to a 2 digit loss of IQ points. https://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2013_11.dir/pdfZG9oBsF_YC.pdf Science 341, 976 (2013) Anandi Mani et al. Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt |
Anonymous
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This article is interesting about how a local man in Boston started a non-profit grocery store in the low income areas of Boston with one in Cambridge.
They are subsidized by local foundations with 70% of costs covered by sales. They are small stores that bring healthy low cost foods to neighborhoods that don’t have access to better quality foods. If no one will step up in NYC then the government should subsidize this type of program in needy neighborhoods. There’s nothing of real value enough for groups of criminals to storm the stores. https://healthyeatingresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Mini-Boston-HFR-Case-Study-FINAL2-1.pdf |
Anonymous
Pennsylvania and 17 other states (red, blue, and purple) have state controlled wholesaling of liquor. "State Stores" are the only places liquor can be sold by the bottle in PA, for example. |
Anonymous
That's the whole point of a public good. I never understood the argument of privatizing so many things since it often ends up costing more because the private entity often has shareholders and has a fiduciary duty to make money. Separately, there are many other areas where public money competes against private money such as recreational activities, housing, education, and transportation. And food deserts exist specifically because the private money already abandoned the area. It'd be ironic if a publicly funded supermarket eventually brought in some other grocery stores because of Fomo. |
Anonymous
Good point. Virginia, where I live, is one of them. So that begs the question: if a state can run for-profit liquor stores (alcohol, as a reminder, is not a need like food but a want), then why can’t it run some supermarkets? |
Anonymous
Anyone else from out of state experience going to a NJ Costco for the first time?? |
Anonymous
+1 Silly comment. Every company has a pyramid, and as a matter of structure, not skill, not everyone can rise to the top. Walmart can only have one CEO at a time, so all those hourly workers may aspire to that, but none of them will have a shot at it. This conversation is about what an organization with huge profits ($19.436 billion) pays to those at the bottom of the pyramid that supports and holds up that CEO. Walmart's top 6 executives earned a combined $99.99 million dollars last year, while their employees rely on government subsidies to feed their families. In what world is that responsible business, moral leadership, rational, fair, or just? The highest minimum wage in the U.S. is $21.16. Those 6 execs earn the equivalent of 23,000 people combined earning the highest minimum wage in the US on a full 40-hour a week schedule. But of course, most minimum wage earneres only get $7.25/hour and only get an average of 23 hours per week. In that real world, those six people took out of the collective profits a bigger share than 25,000 of their employees combined. |
Anonymous
And since labor is the most expensive part of any for profit entity, the only real way to increase profits is to cut labor costs. |
Anonymous
That's why the fiduciary duty language needs to be amended or eliminated for large corporations. It's just an excuse for indentured servitude. No corporations should have tens of billions in profit sitting offshore. |
Anonymous
This narrative that cashier and service jobs were “never meant to support families” is a recent invention. Back in the mid‑20th century, those jobs did support families. With union protections, employer benefits, and a lower cost of living, a grocery store cashier could modestly raise a household, even on a single income. Wages stretched further, and housing and healthcare weren’t yet out of reach. What changed after the 1980s was deliberate: jobs that once sustained families were hollowed out into low‑wage, part‑time positions stripped of benefits. Deindustrialization from outsourcing, aggressive union‑busting, and wage stagnation all played a role. Meanwhile, the minimum wage flatlined, failing to keep pace with inflation or productivity growth. The same cashier job that once covered rent, healthcare, and childcare now barely covers groceries. By the 1990s and 2000s, the right wing responded not by fixing the damage but by reframing it. They began calling these roles “entry‑level jobs for teenagers,” insisting they were never meant to support families. That rhetoric erases decades of reality: from the 1940s through the 1970s, millions of families did rely on those jobs, and companies still profited and prospered while paying their workers higher wages. The truth is simple: this isn’t about workers “expecting too much.” It’s about corporate greed and political choices that eroded the working class. Wages were suppressed, costs soared, and the rich got richer while ordinary Americans were told to settle for less. This is nothing more than an orchestrated GOP erosion of the working class. They grind American workers down while the rich get richer. |
Anonymous
| Is there not also a problem when there are over 10 grocery stores within 10 minutes drive of where I live? Probably 25 or 30 if you stretch that out to 15 minutes. TJ, Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, H-T, Safeway, Giant, Aldi, Lidl. (That's not even including warehouse stores, big box stores, dollar stores, smaller chains, and ethnic grocers.) How do these stores make any money to pay their employees when the only bustling stores are TJ and its cheaper European cousins? |
Anonymous
We don't want the state to run a liquor store. It's unfortunately been declared a controlled substance, you idiot. That's the only reason for ABC stores. |