Chicago’s city government is infamously corrupt and unable to provide basic services like education and public safety consistently, but Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing for the city to also try running a grocery store.
It wouldn’t be the first government-run grocery store—and not even the first one in the United States. For some context about what Chicago is planning, The Wall Street Journal dispatched a reporter to check out the municipal-owned grocery store in Erie, Kansas, which opened in 2021.
How’s it going there? Uh, not great.
“Erie Market, which the city took over in 2021, is losing money almost every month amid stiff competition from a Walmart 15 miles away and a Dollar General across the street,” reports the Journal‘s Joe Barrett. Erie Market posted just a single profitable month during 2022 and lost $132,000.
Maybe Erie’s erstwhile government grocers didn’t realize that—unlike with other government services—grocery stores are subject to competition. Bummer.
Hellbound and Down 