Consumer Redlining and the Reproduction of Inequality at Dollar General

Abstract

This paper extends our knowledge of consumer redlining by providing empirical evidence documenting its occurrence at Dollar General stores while also providing an explanation as to why it occurs in the first place. My data was primarily collected during six months of fieldwork working as a low-wage sales associate. It was also supplemented by additional participant observation at the eighteen other Dollar General stores in my fieldsite’s district and fifty in-depth interviews with coworkers and employees. My findings revealed significant disparities in store quality and customer service between the store locations I examined. Of the nineteen stores in the district, three standout stores emerged as the very worst. Conditions there were dirtier and more hazardous than the rest, with under-stocked shelves, slow customer service, and a contentious atmosphere for those who worked and shopped amidst the squalor. Therefore, I identified these stores as consumer redlined. My findings illustrate how the automated management of Dollar General’s labor supply undermined frontline managers’ authority and workers’ ability to resist precarious scheduling, contributing to the degradation of retail work. While algorithmic labor management standardized employer-driven “flexible” scheduling, the system also resulted in an unequal distribution of payroll hours amongst store locations. I argue that this automated scheduling system functioned to minimize labor cost and maximize profit, exacerbating the degradation of labor and instigating the reproduction of inequality—in this case, by generating consumer redlining. Additionally, my research shows how computer technology can intentionally undermine the power of frontline managers by automatic flexible scheduling, making it difficult to remedy the source of complaints at consumer-redlined stores: systemic understaffing.