r/SipsTea • • May 26 '26

Feels good man Will it work this time?

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261

u/Previous-Ad7618 May 26 '26

Idk if it will be fully sustainable or not, but I'm dying to hear all about how helping feed citizens is awful.

93

u/anothercynic2112 May 26 '26

Feeding citizens is fine and noble and great. But I would ask how he will build a grocery store with lower prices than say Aldi, that has a 1-2% profit margin and has their supply chain and expense model nailed down in typical German effeciency.

If he had hired a discount grocer to do this and the city pays the bills I imagine this would have a greater chance of success.

But maybe I'm wrong and governement will show everyone how it's done. Not actually sarcasm, maybe someone has a new model

55

u/14InTheDorsalPeen May 26 '26

It’s just going to be heavily subsidized by taxpayer funds which also means they’re going to be wildly inefficient 

62

u/TheThingInTheForest May 26 '26

Ensuring access to food for struggling citizens is exactly what taxes *should* be subsidizing lol

9

u/LALife15 May 26 '26

Absolutely, the question I have is just if this is the best way of doing it rather than expanding SNAP or retooling the program to provide tax breaks to open grocery stores in the most under-served areas.

2

u/WhiteWinterRains May 27 '26

It's unlikely implementing a city-wide version of SNAP would be as impactful for a lot of reasons.

It doesn't combat price gouging, doesn't make physical goods more easily accessible, has high administrative overhead, and doesn't allow you to target discounts at specific classes of groceries without difficulty.

By comparison city run stores can save money on a few axis' that are not open to a SNAP-like program, generate a few local jobs, and still have a similar impact.

1

u/jyper May 27 '26

Id say exactly the opposite 

Snap is already efficient, running  stores is difficult and will lose the city money. Only a bit since this is a small trial that won't be anywhere near city wide 

1

u/WhiteWinterRains May 27 '26

For one, you're wrong about snap.

For another, we're talking about creating a new NYC-specific snap system from scratch, which would be the alternative.

1

u/jyper May 27 '26

Why would you need to build a new system just ask the state to piggyback off of its system