In a finance move you might have missed this week, Dollar Tree bought up Family Dollar. It's a marriage made in cheap, plastic goods heaven, at a time when dollar stores can provide a glimpse into the disconnect between an improving economy and stagnating wages.
Dollar stores were doing brisk business throughout the recession, but their profits have shrunk recently, partly because the economy is recovering. On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs report for the month of June: For the first time since 1997, the economy added more than 200,000 jobs for six months straight.
But the jobless rate remains stubbornly mediocre at 6.2 percent. People are still worried, which was clear on a recent visit to a Dollar Tree in Los Angeles County, where there were still a lot of people looking to stretch their dollars.
"You take each day at a time. Some days I have money, some days I don't," said Latonya Wright, who was shopping for her son's frozen dessert business.
Wright said it is hard to tell whether or not the economy is getting better.
"You listen to the news and they say the economy is bad and stuff," she said, "but when you go to the malls or drive past any stores, you see people shopping."
She's right. The Commerce Department announced on Friday that consumer spending has grown by 2.5 percent this quarter. But at the same time, federal statistics show that the poorest Americans are earning less than they did a decade ago.
“ Until the unemployment rate gets a little bit lower, and employers are really competing to hire people, wages are going to stay kind of where they are.