Kind of, but only because of the brief interregnum of the ~1970s-1990s height of suburban shopping malls. Dollar stores are a revival of the general variety discount stores — “five-and-dime” or “dime stores” — that largely either fell to suburbanization and shopping malls or morphed out of the model into mega-retailers (Walton’s Five-and-Dime, for instance, is now known as WalMart) or did the latter but still ended up doing the fomer (e..g, Kmart); the new dollar stores were rising just as many of the earlier giants of the same model were taking their last breaths in the late 1990s and 2000s; at least one of the early dollar store chains (Dollar Zone) was a rebranding of a classic general variety discount store chain that had started as a literal dime store chain (McCrory’s).
The rise of dollar stores tracks pretty well with the decline of the malls that had marginalized the original variety discount stores. They weren’t so much a new phenomenon as something that went through about a generation of marginalization.
> Despite their limited ability, they ARE able to look at price tags in different stores and go "hey, wait a minute!"
Not really. Dollar stores have become so ubiquitous precisely because of their market dominance in areas without options--retail deserts, if you will. If you've really been dirt poor--and dirt poor outside the major cities and suburbs--you would know that driving 20-30 miles to the Wal-Mart two towns over, presuming they even have lower prices, can be cost prohibitive (especially when considering wear-and-tear and the risk of breaking down) when you're living day-to-day, even though in the long-term you end up paying more at the dollar store. Drive across the vast areas of rural and poor America and you'll see dollar stores in the most random and remotest of places; places that 10, 20, or 30 years ago had more options--you may even see their long shuttered remains somewhere nearby.
This is the classic dilemma the impoverished face, and have always faced--it takes money to make (or save) money. Yes, increases in prices at dollar stores will negatively impact alot of people. But when decrying the state of the nation you have to understand why that is and what it means. For example, before someone blames inflation, maybe they should look at profit margins. AFAICT, they've rose relatively sharply since COVID-19: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DG/dollar-general/... Indeed, the "narrowing" of Dollar Tree's earnings forecast mentioned in the article, from $5.40-$5.60 to $5.48-$5.58, is maybe better described as an upward adjustment. I suspect the price increase will help margins even further.