Areas of food insecurity run rampant in impoverished areas but aren’t a direct result of poverty. These areas are the consequence of Reaganomics uplifting big retail chains and the wealthy CEO campaign donors who run them. Explore our timeline of how we got here.
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Dominate, Destroy, Disappear: A Food Insecurity Timeline
Areas where there is food insecurity run rampant in impoverished areas but aren’t a direct result of poverty. These areas are the consequence of Reaganomics uplifting big retail chains and the wealthy CEO campaign donors who run them. Explore our timeline of how we got here.
1930s: Congress Levels the Playing Field for Small Grocers ...
Back in the 1930s, federal investigators noticed The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) was trampling local grocers and pushing out the competition, and they were doing it by using their size to bully suppliers into artificially deflating supply costs, meaning small retailers were stuck with bigger, real-world prices from the same suppliers. Congress responded in 1936 with the Robinson-Patman Act, making it illegal for suppliers to give retail giants products under market value.
1980s: Reagan Administration Shoves a Thumb on the Scale
Pres. Ronald Reagan dismembered the Robinson-Patman Act in the 1980s by refusing to enforce it, and big chains like Kroger and Walmart rejoiced. Walmart immediately set about using price advantages to outcompete and murder a flurry of charming downtown businesses in tiny rural municipalities, like Winona, Miss., in the 1980s and 1990s.
1980s and 1990s: The Playbook for Destroying Small Business Spreads
The tactic is easily recognizable today: Walmart opens a massive warehouse facility, almost the size of a town, to aborb every purchase with TEMU-quality Chinese products and an army of exclusive, low-cost suppliers. This overwhelms smaller businesses dedicated exclusively to selling hardware, food or home products. Suddenly the local hardware store is reduced to a Walmart department staffed by what was once your hardware store employees earning a fraction of the pay.
After the community’s downtown area is suitably decimated, Walmart can maximize its money by closing down the original building and merging with a Walmart in a bigger neighboring community, which leaves a sprawling former-Walmart shell at the outskirts of town and local residents driving to the next town for purchases. The massive, ugly husk sitting at the edge of town will be unfit to house anything but another Walmart—and that’s not coming back anytime soon.
2024: The 1930s Anti-Price-Fixing Law Surges Back to Life ... for Now
December 2023, the FTC surprised everybody by using the Robinson-Patman Act for the first time in ages to file suit against Southern Glazer’s for illegal price discrimination to “level [the] playing field for small, independent retailers.” It was a good sign that things could finally be making a turn, but Democrats are already worried Republican leaders will call the FTC’s most vocal Robinson-Patman Act proponent to step down because he didn’t lick Trump’s boot fast enough for his DEI assault.
Today: Big Chains Still Dominate, but the Ground Softens for Local Competitors
Big retail chains still corner the market on Mexican plums in wintertime, but economic factors could make it easier to turn to local growers for many food items during prime months—if only they had the farm-to-table infrastructure to deliver it.