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The
company's shares were down 5 percent at $73.50 in premarket
trading on Thursday.
By the end of 2016, as many as 22 states would have changed the
criteria for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP), formerly called the food stamp program - a move that is
likely to result in about 1 million Americans losing benefits.
States implementing SNAP changes this year include Florida,
Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, which have some of the highest
concentration of Dollar General stores.
Sales at Dollar General stores open at least 13 months fell 0.1
percent in the quarter ended Oct. 28, compared with the 0.8
percent growth expected by analysts polled by research firm
Consensus Metrix.
Dollar General has been cutting prices to fight aggressive
competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc <WMT.N> and others amid
falling grocery prices.
This reduced Dollar General's net income in the third quarter to
$235.3 million, or 84 cents per share, from $253.3 million, or
86 cents per share, a year earlier.
Profit in the latest quarter included a charge of about 5 cents
per share for store relocation costs and disaster-related
expenses.
Analysts on average were expecting a profit of 93 cents per
share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Net sales rose 5 percent to $5.32 billion, beating the average
analyst estimate of $5.37 billion.
(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru; Editing by
Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
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