Does Dollar General hire people with felonies?

What Dollar General has said

We found no current Dollar General statement on hiring people with criminal records, and it is not on the Second Chance Business Coalition member list. In 2019 Dollar General paid $6 million to settle an EEOC lawsuit alleging its criminal background check screened out Black applicants at a higher rate; the three-year consent decree required a criminology consultant to design any new check and a way for rejected applicants to ask for reconsideration. Dollar General's privacy policy says it collects information from background and criminal checks for applicants.

• EEOC settlement

  In November 2019 Dolgencorp (Dollar General) agreed to pay $6 million to settle an EEOC race-discrimination suit over its criminal background check. The three-year consent decree required that any criminal check be designed by a criminology consultant considering factors such as time since conviction and type of offense, barred discouraging people with records from applying, and required a reconsideration process for rejected applicants.¹

Does Dollar General do background checks?

Dollar General runs background checks. Dollar General's privacy policy (last modified January 1, 2026) says it collects information from background and criminal checks for job applicants and shares data with service providers for background checks. Its distribution careers page links to a portal for people with a conditional job offer, but Dollar General doesn't say what the check covers or when it runs.^2,3

• Criminal history

• How long a background check takes

Does Dollar General drug test?

Dollar General hasn't published a drug testing policy. Some job postings say whether a test is required, so check the listing for the role you want.

Rules for specific jobs

• Applicants rejected after a background check (2019–2022 consent decree period)

  Under the EEOC consent decree, Dollar General had to tell rejected applicants clearly that they could submit information and ask for reconsideration. The decree ran three years from 2019; we found no current Dollar General page describing a reconsideration process.¹

• Commercial drivers in DOT-regulated jobs

  Federal rules require a negative pre-employment drug test before a CDL driver first performs safety-sensitive work for an employer.⁴

Your rights, and how far back a check can go

• Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), an employer must get your written permission before it gets a background report about you from a background screening company.^8,9,10
• Before an employer decides not to hire, keep, or promote you because of something in a background report, it must give you a copy of the report and a document called "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act."^8,9
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^8,11
• The FCRA's seven-year limit does not apply to criminal convictions, so under federal law a conviction can show up on a background report no matter how old it is.^12,13
• Under the FCRA, background and credit reports generally cannot include arrest records, civil lawsuits, or civil judgments that are more than seven years old (or older than the statute of limitations, if that is longer).^12,14

Your full background check rights

Before you apply

• You can ask a background screening company for the information it has on you, and the CFPB keeps a list of consumer reporting companies, including employment screening companies, with their contact details.^8,11,15
• According to the Clean Slate Initiative, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have passed Clean Slate laws that meet its criteria for automatically clearing eligible records: Pennsylvania, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Illinois, and Missouri, plus D.C.¹⁶
• The Federal Bonding Program, run by the U.S. Department of Labor, lets states give employers free fidelity bonds that protect them against losses from a newly hired worker's dishonest acts, for job seekers with past justice involvement or in recovery from substance use.^17,18

See whether you can clear your record in your state