Most businesses have to make a profit to stay open — but not the government.

While big grocery stores like Walmart and Whole Foods leave crime-ridden Chicago, Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson remains convinced that the solution to “food deserts” in the South and West sides of the city is state-run grocery stores. (READ MORE: Gov. Gavin’s Gun Gambit)

Last week, Johnson announced that the city is partnering with the left-wing advocacy group Economic Security Project to explore the possibility of creating the first state-run grocery stores. “My administration is committed to advancing innovative, whole-of-government approaches to address these inequalities,” Johnson said in a statement.

Johnson’s initiative comes after Walmart announced in April that the retail giant would be closing four of its eight locations in the Chicago area because the stores were losing massive amounts of money. In a statement released at the time, Walmart said:

The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago — these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years.

Retail experts told local news outlets that crime gangs have turned retail theft into a huge operation to make a profit from stolen goods. “You have these organized retail crime syndicates who come in and sweep large amounts of merchandise in an extraordinarily short period of time and then ship them all over the world for profit,” Rob Karr, CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said. (RELATED: Kids Love to Shop in Newsomland)

Between 2014 and 2023, three Walmart locations in the city accounted for 2,751 arrests for retail thefts, according to Chicago Police Department data, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “estimates more than $2 billion worth of goods were stolen” just in 2021.

However, Johnson and the Economic Security Project aren’t interested in blaming high crime rates; the issue, they believe, is a pattern of “historic disinvestment.” In a press release, the organization claimed:

This collaboration furthers the Johnson administration’s work towards repairing past harms that have contributed to purposeful disinvestment and exclusion and lack of food access in historically underserved communities….. [F]ood access and security link directly to environmental and racial justice.

The initiative is par for the course for the Economic Security Project. The far-left, socialist organization was founded in 2016 to champion “universal income” and was behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s 2018 BOOST Act, which sought to establish a guaranteed income. The project has also worked with the Biden administration to expand the child tax credit, promising a “guaranteed income for kids.” (READ MORE: Kia Isn’t Responsible for Chicago’s Car Thefts)

Ameya Pawar, senior adviser at the Economic Security Project and former Chicago city council member, claimed that the municipal grocery stores would not be all that different from similar government-run services, like libraries or the post office.

“[A] public option offers economic choice and power to communities,” he said. “A City-owned grocery store in the South or West side of Chicago would be a viable way to restore access to healthy food in areas that have suffered from historic and systemic disinvestment.”

More likely, a state-run grocery store will still get robbed by crime gangs — only large corporations won’t be fitting the bill anymore; American taxpayers will.