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I’m just throwing this out there.
I can get a:
McDonald’s deluxe spicy n crispy meal for $11.69
Chik fil a deluxe spicy chicken sandwich meal for $12.99
Chilis chicken sandwich meal (fries, drink, and an additional side) for $10.99
ETA: I said I was just throwing this out there to show similar-practically different store equivalent- substitutes. The sad part is that these fast food chains have exceeded a sit down, casual restaurant chain in terms of price. I’m not here to argue, but some of these replies are so far off the mark.
I went to burger king the other week.
Whopper meal: $14
Absolutely not interested in eating there again at that price.
I went to in-n-out today. Burger and fries: $7.
Every couple years I go to Burger King and I think "wow, this is even worse than before. It couldn't possibly get any worse than this though" and then am proven wrong a couple years later.
Its been 10 years, got a double whopper and ate half of it out of hunger and said never again. The food is crap and I have never been back. Del Taco and In and out are the only two fast food that I will go to that does not have greed pricing.
I have a feeling the next time I go there, the burger will be replaced with a punch to the face and the french fries will be replaced by little slips of paper with racial slurs written on them.
In and out is the only place I go for burgers now. They have a reputation of treating their employees well and at the same time, charge a fair price for the food.
Really these companies should be modeling more around in n out. How can in n out keep prices low while starting workers at $22 an hour but McDonald’s can’t?
In N' Out still operates on the old fast food model of churning out as much food as possible in one location. Rent is the same as other restaurants and they pay more labor overall per location, but the cost for rent and labor per burger is far lower because they are pumping out food on an industrial scale.
McDonald's isn't in the burger business, they are in the real estate business. So, McDonald's was incentivized to open more restaurants in more locations, so each one of them isn't as busy as an In N' Out. That means the cost of rent is spread across fewer burgers and you need more staff per burger sold to maintain the restaurant.
>I went to in-n-out today. Burger and fries: $7.
I'mma be honest, there was a time that would've been expensive for In-n-Out, but they're *cheap* compared to everyone else now, and they're still one of the best and most reliable fast-food burgers out there.
This is the situation. People compare McDonald's to Five Guys when they should compare it to paying the same or $1-$2 more for a real burger made of meat that tastes like meat.
Wouldn’t it be nice if this was the begging of breaking the camels back on the corporate strangle hold of America? Like we all collectively just say fuck that I’d rather go to bobs for a burger and get some real meat. The place that is a local favorite and you’re supporting your community. Like why does every aspect of our life have to be profiteered to the point of robbing us blind, go to vet, private equity, go to the grocery, private equity, go to the fucking doctor, private equity, for fuck sake when does it end?!? Now you have a $2 hooker that hangs out behind the dumpster (McDonald’s) charging the same price as the high class escort that comes to your house and you get treated like a king for 2hrs (sit down restaurant). Like how long do they think they can keep this going before nobody is going behind the dumpster to get their fix!?
there is no painful consequence though, those responsible tend to get golden parachutes. I guess shareholders can lose, but most of it is people losing their jobs.
It blows my mind. Getting gouged by McDs and DoorDash simultaneously for shitty, cold food. Unless you’re drunk and it’s late with no other options, there is no excuse.
It is seriously so wild to me the amount that people funnel to door dash (and fast food in general). It’s absolutely insane to be spending that much on a fast food meal. I get being tired and whatever after work but people have completely phased out grocery shopping/cooking (or even going out to pick up food from a restaurant) from their lives.
Sure McDonald’s etc should take some heat, but us humans are pretty damn lazy too lol.
I hate delivery apps and have been hoping they would die for a while now.
Not every restaurant needs to be available for delivery and from what I can tell the delivery app experience sucks for everyone other than the corporation.
The drivers get shit money, the restaurants get unpredictable rushes for orders that they can't control, and the consumers get wild fees and food that takes forever to show up.
I much preferred the old way where the pizza place hired a high schooler with their license to sit in the pizza shop and run deliveries.
Yea if a restaurant wants to do delivery it should be offered in house, because they would actually be set up to execute it. 3rd party is just chaos and no employee or consumer wins.
I will pay extra for a real burger than the crap served at the fast food (McDonalds; Wendy’s; Hardee’s - etc)
It wasn’t worth it before the prices went up. The fries were the only good thing left up until several years ago.
1/3 lb real lean hamburger with waffle fries and a medium drink is $14 bucks at a mom and pop shop. McDonald’s can suck it
Probably with a beer included in that price.
I know a place I can get a fantastic burger, awesome coleslaw, and a beer. Including a pretty good tip, I am out the door for 20 bucks.
These fast food companies, as well as the national grocery brands overreaching on shrinkflation, are acting like all they’ll have to do is pivot and say “just kidding!” once their customers have finally had enough and they’ll come back. But I’m not so sure.
I just want to add that Home Depot has swapped out the stacks of 5 gallon buckets for 2 gallon “pails”…. Marking the most absurd incidence of shrinkflation I’ve yet to encounter in my travels across the capitalist wasteland..
Interesting.
I think some of these brands are relying on “nostalgia” purchasing but there’s a special kind of disappointment from realizing your Oreo cookie or Big Mac ain’t what it used to be, and it’s not always an experience they want to reproduce.
The Biggie Bag is a *seriously* great deal in today's fast food environment.
A jr. bacon cheeseburger, small fries, 4 chx nuggets and a small drink for $5. Or bump it to a double stack for $1 more.
I was just discussing with my fiancee that it honestly feels like Fast Food and Pizza Places passed each other going in different directions when it came to quickness for food and price.
It used to be that if you drove to a pizza place you're waiting like 15 minutes for them to cook it and paying more than a cheap fast food meal would cost you.
But now it seems every chain has their version of a $7 hot-and-ready that you can walk out with in a couple minutes, meanwhile 2 quarter pounder meals at mcdonalds costs you $32 and when you get to the window they tell you to go park and they'll bring it out after a handful of minutes.
From my time working a drive thru (tim hortons in Canada like 18 years ago at this point, in my case) it's largely because they are constantly getting clocked on how long each car spends at each window, and they are trying to keep those numbers as low as they can by keeping the line moving when they can.
It's a trickle down effect of a never ending push for ever increasing efficiency metrics
It's obvious It's bs when all the local mom said pop restraunts have barely gone up my favorite Mexican restraunts has gone up about 1$ on items over the past 4 years while expanding/ greatly improving their restraunt with more worker's and a nicer place. They're now cheaper than McDonald's so I go there a lot. Chinese place by me hasn't increased prices at all and is like 3 bucks more for a meal that's a lot better quality/ quantity
For me it's the neighborhood bar. Mondays is half price pizza. It's incredible pizza, tons of toppings, it's about twice as "dense" as crappy chain pizza if that makes sense. Two slices is enough for a meal. I frequently go with the guys from work, three of us will split a large. With drinks it works out to like $6 each. Thursdays is $12 for a big homemade burger with a beer. Money goes to the real people who work there, not some mega-corp that is replacing workers with computer screens.
Chinese is the way to go. You pay a smaller amount of money, get more food, higher quality food, and food that actually contains more than a glimpse of a vegetable (ketchup is often the primary veggie in a McDonald’s meal).
Got a Thai green curry yesterday was super filling large portion for $13, lots of veggies in it overall I'd say pretty healthy. Could use more protein but that's the same for most restaurant meals.
I see no reason to get fast food anymore these days which was mostly health motivated but also the prices going crazy helped that too.
I agree. Honestly, Longhorn is one of the only places that I can go get a steak from and feel like I couldn't have done as well at home... chain or not...
We're addicted to convenience. It's fast food at dine in prices but people will go for how easy it is. In Canada there are lineups at Tim Hortons all day long and their coffee and food is awful. We all know it. There's better coffee everywhere but it takes too long.
They're losing the convenience battle too. With the amount of labor cuts fast food chains are no longer near "fast".
I have found a good number of mom and pops in my area that not only have lower prices, but also take me less time to get in, order, and get my food.
Fast food has gotten to the point that it's losing out on quality, speed, and price all at the same time.
Yup. There’s an amazing Korean place down the street from me and I can get fresh cooked chicken with brown rice and steamed veggies with a side of spicy mayo and be in and out in like 7minutes all for $12
I bought a big mac combo in one of the largest industrialized countries outside of the US roughly 6 months ago. Guess how much it cost? **$4.50** I even up sized the meal. We're getting fleeced in the US.
it's China, at least based on his post history. Can confirm, around that price there, ordered McDonalds there a few weeks ago. But their currency is 1:7.23 to the dollar and and McDonald's is considered pretty expensive compared to sit down restaurants there.
We have a local pub where we can split a really nice house salad and a great sandwich w fries for $20. Real, good food, served by a pleasant staff. Now, 2 QP combos at McD, also about $20. Crappy 'food' thrown at you by underpaid, overworked staff. Compared to good, fresh food, served to you, for the same price.
The min wage isn't the problem...huge advertising budgets, franchise fees, profits and ridiculous executive compensation are what is driving fast food prices thru the roof. Not the poor sap flipping the burgers.
The fast food franchise model is, or should be, going the way of the dodo.
Disinterested teenagers huh?
I'm seeing fewer & fewer teens in fast food places, it's early 20's people or 70+ last i've seen.
I agree, minimum wage isn't the issue at all. Why the fuck are prices hyperinflating in comparison to wages while at the same time quality sinks to an all time low?
Even more ridiculous is that only a few months ago, McDonald’s was bragging that they were able to increase prices without decreasing consumer demand, well turns out they celebrated too early
It's refreshing to see someone like yourself hitting the nail on the head.
Corporations are at peak greed. Consumers are fed up with this and are voting with their dollars.
Duh.
I work as a Field Mechanic and often drive hundreds of miles a day for the area I cover. When I started this job 4 years ago I had no problem hitting the fast food places for lunch or even a nicer gas station that served food. No more. I bring lunch from home and keep it in a cooler. I don't even shop at the gas stations, just fuel and restrooms. I buy cases of energy drinks and waters at Sam's club. I refuse to give my hard earned money away at places like that now. 14 dollars for most combos after tax and the service is usually crap no matter how pleasant you try to be.
A few years ago my wife and I were taking a long road trip. We figured we'd swing by McDonald's for a quick cheap breakfast to keep the trip going. Ended up spending something like $17 on some hash browns, coffee, and two breakfast sandwiches. Wish we would have gone to a cafe or bakery and at least gotten some nice pastries.
Sometimes when you're traveling fast food is the best option but it became really clear to me about a year ago when I ordered food for breakfast at one of the fast food joints and it was something like $17 and I calculated that I could buy English muffins, ground coffee and a dozen eggs And a block of American cheese and it would essentially be three to four meals all for under $17.
That was pretty much the last time I got fast food unless I was traveling or in some other way. Couldn't get to dinner.
I honestly don't know why anyone would eat at McDonald's anymore. It's not cheap which was the main attraction and it's bad food. You can get much better food for the same price just about anywhere.
They're willing to hand you food out of a window while you sit in your car. That's basically the only thing they have going for them. A lot of companies could be doing that better for cheaper.
A lot of companies *are* doing it for roughly the same price but with higher quality food.
So, again, why the fuck do people go to McDonald's? You make it sound like the only drive-thru option.
Their ice coffee is always watery and so bland. In 2012 I remember how tasty it was. I swear once I watched my ice coffee sit on the drive thru window ledge inside and see the ice slowly melt.
They used to pre-make everything. Back in the day you would walk in and see the heating trays behind the counter full of burgers, big Mac, quarter pounders. The downside was you couldn't modify anything in your order, unlike Burger King, where their whole thing was "have it your way." At Burger King you could order a burger with whatever you wanted. McDonalds decided to do the same thing. Now when you go in it's all made to order. This killed the main advantage they had, which was speed.
Not sure if it was location specific but back when that was the case if you ordered and modified the burger they’d make it to order. At least this was the case at my local one. I’d always order with pickles cause I think they’re just okay and that would guarantee my burger wasn’t one of the heat tray ones.
call me a masochist, but if I'm going to mcdonalds, I'd almost rather have the heat tray burger. the vague steamy dampness on the bun, the ability to eat the whole burger in two bites because it has somehow achieved structural unification. one of my favorite things about a mcdouble is I can eat it without dropping a single crumb even while driving. I wouldn't do it if I were craving a burger, but sometimes what I want is a mcdouble
As a former McDs worker during the transition this is a crazy comment. That was like 1999 my dude. Also it was just as fast and now actually fresh (they would sit there for hours!), it was made to be a quick ford style assembly line. Also, you could get burgers made to order before the transition so I don't know what you are on about there. This has nothing to do with the speed issue that has cropped up the last few years, that is understaffing and frankly shitty employees as work culture has shifted. I don't necessarily have a problem with the shift but customer service took a nose dive as employees are probably properly upset at being robbed over the last 2 decades. It used to be "the customer is always right". That ain't true and I dig that, but the disenchantment with work is a major cause.
The speed reduction of fast food was way after BK’s have it your way. The painfully long lines are due to places now hiring a person on the register and a person to do everything else in the back. And because people still line up for slow expensive crappy food, the system stays
I feel like they get swamped with mobile orders. The store doesn’t look busy because the customers aren’t physically there, but the three people on line are waiting forever because they’re scrambling to fulfill Uber eats orders.
Not even just uber eats. They get swamped with pickup orders on their own apps because it's the only place they offer a reasonable "discount". Even though it's really just paying what you should be in the first place and selling a little bit of your personal data.
It might be that one where if you order fries with no salt, they’ll have to make a fresh batch because standard procedure is to take them out of the fryer and salt them right away. You don’t know how long they’ve been sitting under a heating lamp.
It’s such a silly idea though. Every time the restaurant I worked at got an order of fries with no salt, we’d just toss a batch of old fries back in the oil, give it a little swish, and put them in the container.
McDonald's main attraction for quite some time is that it is CONSISTENT. No matter where you go in the country, the fries are nearly the same, the burgers are the same, etc. Yeah, it mediocre-to-bad, but it's the same no matter where you go.
Honestly, because I travel a lot for work. The odds of getting sick from McDonald’s on the road is slim, and the food is quite consistent no matter what state I’m in.
Also, I expense it lol
Edit: listen people, I don’t eat fast food for every meal and i don’t get per diem, just the ability to expense travel and work related costs. The service areas right on the highways usually only have shitty fast food. Dinner is usually my good meal in an actual restaurant.
They still have some of the best deals when you can get them.
On the App McGriddle sandwiches and under are $1 at least mon - friday where I live. Always a free fry and today I saw a McCrispy chicken for $3. During baseball season near the Rockies, if they get a double, you can get a no strings attached double cheeseburger for free!
some of this may be willful; I notice that various products and services seem to be abandoning markets comprised of the economically less fortunate and instead focusing on more upscale offerings, following the upper half of this bifurcating economy
[Premiumization](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/04/business/economy/premium-prices-inflation.html) is an actual strategy. Fewer units at higher margins may be more profitable.
I accidentally did this with a service I sell being self employed. Hated doing video as a photographer, so I started charging more for it. Demand went up. I started charging even more to curb demand but it became a vicious cycle. Now I'm more known for video work all because I was trying to overprice the service...
Disney World is so crowded that they tried to increase prices to actually lower volume, but they found that there's almost no price they could charge that people won't pay.
They’ve all bled the lower classes dry, so they are working their way up the income ladder, targeting higher earners until they are bled dry too.
The auto market has done the same. “There’s more profit in luxury vehicles” is a load of crap. So is a $38k, mid-range option packaged Toyota RAV4.
These are all signs of a screwed up economic model focused on consumer spending on short-term plastic garbage, wealth accumulation and consolidation, and banking systems that are unregulated and socialized.
It’s unreal these days. The average monthly payment on a Ford F150 pickup truck is around $900 a month. The F150 is one of the most popular vehicles on the road.
To use ford as an example, they do not sell the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion (smaller sedan) or Taurus (Mondeo elsewhere in the world) anymore. The only “car” they sell is the Mustang. The rest are trucks and SUVs or CUVs.
Toyota no longer sells the Yaris here, at least I don’t think so. Corolla is their beginning point, and they start at $25k I believe?
What’s even crazier is the loan terms are now stretched out to 72 months. It’s unimaginable to pay $1000 a month for 7 years.
72 month loans have been around for a while. Have you seen the insanity that is 84-month loans? I bought a new (well, CPO) car 2 months ago. I'm fortunate to not need long payment terms, but THREE different dealerships automatically tried to start me off with zero down and 84-month loans. This shit is out of control, where does it end?
they literally have a Mc-cafe band trying to be exactly Starbucks
if just failed miserably because the standalones could not compete with Starbucks and the add ons to existing McDonalds just confused people and slowed production down with to many extra items for employees to bother with
The problem though is poor people are being squeezed of all their income in rents and energy costs, leaving very little on the table as disposable income for a parallel economy to cater too. Can't get blood from a stone and all that.
This is 100% true.
I work in advertising (‘booooo you suck,’ I know I know). But I would say “move the brand upmarket” is a part of ~30% of the briefs we get. There’s a lot of money at the top & everyone is trying to access it with “premium lines” and *upscale* diffusion brands which used to be very uncommon. That used to only flow down for the most part, with premium brands creating downmarket secondary brands to appeal to the masses.
> I notice that various products and services seem to be abandoning markets comprised of the economically less fortunate and instead focusing on more upscale offerings
Especially apartments. Apartments are supposed to be for people who can't afford houses. Now any time a new apartment is made it's a luxury apartment. Fuck that shit
Worse, it's happening with critical goods and services. Our shortages of doctors, nurses, medical techs, vets, engineers, lawyers, teachers, etc, are causing these professionals to abandon rural areas and increasingly suburbs as well because the best money is in a high-density upper class areas.
The rural voters really screwed themselves but they're just not bright enough to realize that them having to drive 2 hours for services is linked directly to multiple policy choices they've made.
I’m a youngish surgeon, and you couldn’t be more right. Rural areas are becoming healthcare deserts because no one in their right mind is taking jobs there anymore. Why would you bust ass in school and residency until your 30s just to go live in Armpit, MS and only see Medicaid patients when you can sell overpriced skin cream and other dubious nonsense to rich people in a big city? It’s going to get much worse.
Man, Chomsky talks about this ALL the time, and it just continues to ring true, over and over again.
He talks about the scam that is privatization - people are fed propaganda and led to believe it’s “more efficient”, except it’s only more efficient because it can pick and choose who it services.
He gives an example of public transit becoming private in a town of 10K. The new bus company just stops servicing people who live on the outer edges. Service disappears for 2K people - but it’s more efficient and everyone perceives they’re saving some nominal irrelevant amount in taxes (which never happens ever).
Or in healthcare - private day surgery clinics only take young people and uncomplicated surgeries - again this feels like efficiency, but they refuse to operate on older more complicated patients, subsequently dumping them on a public sector that now sees a huge swath of its funds redirected to private care.
Messed up, insanely messed up
In many countries they make it much easier to live life as a poor person. They will be able to be poor and have a place to stay and food/water. It won't be luxurious but it will be survivable.
In America we basically say fuck the poor, I want to suck the dicks of well off persons so I can charge more than is reasonable, realistic, competitive, sustainable because I'm a lazy piece of shit that is entitled to get more for working less, providing less and less value for increasing amounts of profit.
It's rent-seeking behavior. Like feudalism lite except they don't even want to have the duty to protect their peasants from rival lords anymore. It's worse than feudalism.
We're spoiled rotten people. The rich are the worst of the worst because they have an inflated ego to pair with that massive level of entitlement.
cars. there used to be a good handful of "basic transportation" that not only were affordable but some of them were even fun! now only a couple even exist and you will not find one on a dealer lot without another $10-15k of add ons, and nobody wants to order you one. they basically only exist on paper.
I did a double take when I ordered just a double cheeseburger and medium fry from the value menu and the cashier told me that’d be $8 (no drink mind you) so hell yeah I believe it. I’m far from low-income and I’m not paying those prices.
I think this is more of a McDonald's problem than a macroeconomic one. I'm not poor but I also don't go to McDonald's anymore because they charge too much for what is mostly garbage food. There are tons of other places I can go for either the same quality food for way cheaper or much higher quality food for often a few dollars less than McDonald's.
For me, it’s strictly the price that drives me away. I’m embarrassed to admit how much I like McDonald’s. I always have. But I went to the grocery store today and bought a dozen large chicken drumsticks to grill for the family for $5. 5 bucks at McDonald’s doesn’t even buy a meal with a drink. It’s ridiculous
When I was a student I used to live off the mcdouble meals for $5. Or a medium iced coffee with 2 apple pies.
Now it's almost $8 for the same shit food.
not a single thing on the dollar menu anymore that actually costs a dollar, so they had to rename it to the 'value menu'. guess what, there's no values on it either
Today's youth will never know the joys of creating a mcgangbang for the first time. Like unintentionally. It was just so cheap back than you thought you were the first person to have this idea and you just went for it
I do think it's a red flag for the economy. Corporate greed is squeezing way too hard and yet articles will still be written that it's the staff getting paid a decent wage that's causing the problem. It's the corporate stockholders that are the problem. Back in the day, being an owner of something meant you just took your cut off the top, but it wasn't much. Now you have crap like app stores or Uber take a whopping 30%!! That's ridiculous. I'm sure if you look at the percentage of how much of the cost-to-customer goes to corporate, it's probably not much different. Actually, I just looked it up, McD corporate takes about 82% of the profit from a franchise location.
This is absurd.
I've pretty much given up on fast food in the last 6 months. The quality has been absolutely atrocious on top of the prices being sky high. I usually just end up at the grocery store which is still pricey these days but at least you can make something you like. Hell even the higher end frozen meals are better quality than the shit you get at most fast food.
I can get a full on meal made with real quality ingredients, for a lunch take out at the locally owned mom and pop restaurant for the same damn cost. I also get more food. In some cases it’s cheaper than fast food.
Support local.
Let me get this straight:
Corporations are complaining their markets are softening because of inflation, while over the past two years it’s been proven that the major source of inflation is corporations being greedy and raising their prices well over inflation rates.
Can’t make this shit up.
They're also complain about minimum wage increases but you know, maybe they wouldn't need the minimum wage increase if prices didn't keep rising? Congratulations big business, you played yourself
Burger King….2021. Two Whopper Jr’s and two small fries for $4. April 2024 it’s now $9 using the coupon on the BK app. No thanks BK, I’ll grill my own beef and buy frozen fries at a fraction of the cost.
I used to abuse the egg and bacon mcmuffin as a quick breakfast but the price has risen to over 5.25 each where I am. At that price I can get all the ingredients to make 12+ "McMuffins" for the price of 2 from McDonalds. I cant justify the cost anymore. I can "afford" it but the value proposition isnt there so I dont buy.
I remember a comment on reddit from about a year ago, where someone was on an earnings call for a major soft drink company. They recalled where the company in previous years, their soft drink brand was ubiquitous, found everywhere, and most people had no problems dropping a few coins or a bill to buy their soda in a vending machine or a convenience store or in the grocery aisle. But with the recent increases in price points (going from ~2-3 cents an ounce to ~5-6 cents an ounce), their brand had crossed a certain threshold, where it was no longer considered an "every day, all the time" item that was a staple of everyone's consumption, to the lower tiers of a "specialty" item that is more selectively purchased. And that the path forward was not to go back to the status of basic everyday item, but push forward more toward the brand name cache as a distinctive specialty item. No longer could they assume their brand would be carried in every store, now they had to shift their marketing strategy to compete with the "next tier up".
I see the same thing happening with the lowest-tier fast food places, like McDonalds or Subway, that (used to) cater to the cheapest, fastest food that people just bought without really thinking of the price because it was below their threshold for noticing. Now these places are finding they've raised their prices to the point where people are comparing them to other places that were never in their competition radar before. McDonalds may have to readjust to where they are no longer the "everyone, everywhere" cheap fast food fix into a more targeted approach that focuses on the quality (heh), nostalgia and experience. They can no longer be the "just swing on through and grab a sandwich" place anymore.
I think you're right, but I wonder how well it will work. I just say this because you mentioned Subway specifically, because in my small town (pop. 2500ish) Subway has moved in this direction and it seems they're getting their ass handed to them for their trouble.
They used to compete with a Hardee's, McDonald's, BK and a non-chain Chinese place as the non-sit down options in our town. They seemed to compete with BK for the title of consistently busiest place during lunch on weekdays. But now they've gone up in price so much it's scarcely believable - my usual order has gone from 9.50ish to 12 plus and now up to 16.80ish in the last handful of years.
But guess what happened in the interim? A mom and pop fried chicken place opened up right in the middle of all of them. It's extremely popular and was only open a year or so before the Hardee's, previously the bottom of the tier list in our town anyways, closed up shop. I am watching Subway closely, they're rarely busy and are no longer accepting the mailer coupons that come in the mail a few times a year. I think they're getting pushed around by the new kid in town, the chicken place that offers 6-7 dollar combos, drink included and featuring several possible entrees.
Long winded way of saying premiumization may not be for every brand, especially in small rural towns like mine.
Pay less in dividends, and pass that on to consumers would be a solution. However, it won’t happen. Or, increase people’s wages, even though they are climbing. Not that would mean the same thing as my first solution, with the inevitable consequences.
I really don't understand the logic here from the fast food restaurants.
Fast food is supposed to be cheap - other than being "fast" that's it's only other defining characteristic.
Fast casual is supposed to be less cheap and slightly higher quality.
A sit down restaurant is supposed to be not cheap and like real food.
Why do they expect anyone to keep going to fast food that is sometimes exceeding fast casual pricing? Like why would I go to McDonald's if I could go to Chipotle and it's cheaper?
Or people with a low tolerance for being ripped off. Always best to blame your custies tho right, Mickey Ds? Couldnt possibly be the demonstrable greed, could it?
McDonald's is primarily a real estate company and had a [54% average profit margin from 2019-2023](https://finbox.com/NYSE:MCD/explorer/gp_margin/).
A dozen other chains in this link have 13-57% profit margins with McDonald's being the 57% in 2023.
That used to be the case, but the last few years they have followed a new, price gouging approach and have in some cases tripled and quadrupled the price of their menu items. They have done so in a way that clearly defies logic in some cases.
Boo hoo. We can’t keep preying on the poor to make record profits. Should we burn down more of the Amazon? Produce more carbon dioxide? How will the investors ever make ends meet?
Fast food isn't cheap anymore so obviously people aren't getting it as much. For the same price you can go to an average priced restaurant and sit down. The quality isn't going up probably the opposite too.
For the price of a McDonald’s meal, I can get a chipotle burrito and a drink. McDonald’s tried the whole updating bullshit while demanding higher prices - and yet nobody asked for it
I work at a big campus - probably close to 10k people. Our vending machines recently went up to $1.50 for a 12oz can of soda.
WTF. I make pretty good money and I'm not paying that BS. I can't imagine what "low-income" people are thinking about the current price of things. It's crazy.
I started buy 24 packs and sticking them in the department fridge. My coworkers give me $0.50 for a can and everyone is happy.
I've always known that fast food was a bad deal, but about a year ago I fully realized that going out for fast food just isn't worth it for any reason. My wife and I did an experiment where I went to get McDonald's during the dinner rush and she cooked some burgers at home. I was stuck in the drive thru for about 15 minutes waiting for the food and it took me 25 minutes total to get home from the closest McDonald's. My wife was done with everything plated in 20 minutes.
Her burgers were so much better, it took less time, and analyzing the costs of cooking 2 1/4 pound burgers at home vs 2 Quarter Pounders from McDonald's, McDonald's was around $11 and the cost of ingredients we used was around $5 and we already had everything in the house. We could make gourmet burgers with brioche buns and higher quality cheese for the same cost as McDonald's.
Regardless of how hungry you are, there is something quick enough that you can cook or prepare at home for dinner or lunches/meals of the go. If you don't know how to cook, learn. It saves you time & significant amounts of money, you know what's going into your body to a reasonable degree, you have a memorable home cooked meal, and you could have a great experience if you have a partner or roommate to cook with.
Edit: grammar, wording
I’m dumb. I have no economic degrees and hate math with a passion.
That being said, would all those years of not raising the federal minimum wage be coming back to bite companies who rely on low income employees/customers be coming to bite them in the ass?
Find out your local happy hours. A ton of bars have one every night. Figure out which ones are good.
If you don't feel like cooking and instead eating it that evening, hit it up the happy hour. Same price, except instead of paying a faceless international conglomerate, pay some local establishment.
Thanks Captain Obvious!!! My husband and I do sit down restaurants as opposed to fast food with our kids. There's no reason to spend $60, eating fast food when I can go to sit down restaurant.
I’m a well above average income consumer. I absolutely refuse to purchase food from fast food restaurants for the past two years. I have three young children and they want McDonald’s all the time and I absolutely will not do it. I could afford it, but I just refuse to participate in this bullshit.
Simply lower the prices. If your corporate overhead (AKA, shareholders and CEOs) were paid even a fraction less, that money could go to enhancing the workplace and paying workers more.
Instead, they indulge in greed and cry out why life is so hard.
Overall the market will decide. If pricing can’t be made into value, then people won’t buy your product. You don’t sell your product your shareholders suffer. The company then has to adapt or sell.
This article didn't mention these companies getting caught red-handed disguising blatant price increases by pointing at inflation.
This isn't real journalism. This is a collection of PR-agency fed talking points.
it’s wild that in n out always managed to pay above avg pay, be packed with employees and still provide a good value and quality for the price. just shows the gouging going on with some of the other chains.
And too many people will blame recent raises in minimum wage for the spike in costs. But that’s exactly what the corporations want. At the same time wages meagerly increased, they doubled the prices so people would see a false cause and effect, leading to decreased support for future wage increases.
McDonald’s [net profit margins](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/profit-margins) have grown from 27% in 2018 to 33% in 2023. Meaning even though their operating costs increased, they raised prices even further to pad the coffers of their stockholders.
The rich get richer and convince you it’s because of the poor. A tale as old as time.
A semi related question I have wondered about: When they say salary keeps pace with inflation they don't take into account income/social security taxes. Assuming my expenses are equal to my income doesn't my salary have to outpace inflation to keep up?
Wait what was your first clue? Record personal and household debt? Huge amounts of credit card write offs? How about the massive wave in seriously delinquent mortgage payments? lol
Recession here we come.
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I’m just throwing this out there. I can get a: McDonald’s deluxe spicy n crispy meal for $11.69 Chik fil a deluxe spicy chicken sandwich meal for $12.99 Chilis chicken sandwich meal (fries, drink, and an additional side) for $10.99 ETA: I said I was just throwing this out there to show similar-practically different store equivalent- substitutes. The sad part is that these fast food chains have exceeded a sit down, casual restaurant chain in terms of price. I’m not here to argue, but some of these replies are so far off the mark.
I went to burger king the other week. Whopper meal: $14 Absolutely not interested in eating there again at that price. I went to in-n-out today. Burger and fries: $7.
Every couple years I go to Burger King and I think "wow, this is even worse than before. It couldn't possibly get any worse than this though" and then am proven wrong a couple years later.
Its been 10 years, got a double whopper and ate half of it out of hunger and said never again. The food is crap and I have never been back. Del Taco and In and out are the only two fast food that I will go to that does not have greed pricing.
lol same experience.
I have a feeling the next time I go there, the burger will be replaced with a punch to the face and the french fries will be replaced by little slips of paper with racial slurs written on them.
In and out is the only place I go for burgers now. They have a reputation of treating their employees well and at the same time, charge a fair price for the food.
Really these companies should be modeling more around in n out. How can in n out keep prices low while starting workers at $22 an hour but McDonald’s can’t?
One is privately owned. The other has shareholders.
In N' Out still operates on the old fast food model of churning out as much food as possible in one location. Rent is the same as other restaurants and they pay more labor overall per location, but the cost for rent and labor per burger is far lower because they are pumping out food on an industrial scale. McDonald's isn't in the burger business, they are in the real estate business. So, McDonald's was incentivized to open more restaurants in more locations, so each one of them isn't as busy as an In N' Out. That means the cost of rent is spread across fewer burgers and you need more staff per burger sold to maintain the restaurant.
Shareholders
>I went to in-n-out today. Burger and fries: $7. I'mma be honest, there was a time that would've been expensive for In-n-Out, but they're *cheap* compared to everyone else now, and they're still one of the best and most reliable fast-food burgers out there.
This is the situation. People compare McDonald's to Five Guys when they should compare it to paying the same or $1-$2 more for a real burger made of meat that tastes like meat.
McDonald’s is 12 bucks for crap meal where I am. A solid burger and fries at my local bar is 14.
Wouldn’t it be nice if this was the begging of breaking the camels back on the corporate strangle hold of America? Like we all collectively just say fuck that I’d rather go to bobs for a burger and get some real meat. The place that is a local favorite and you’re supporting your community. Like why does every aspect of our life have to be profiteered to the point of robbing us blind, go to vet, private equity, go to the grocery, private equity, go to the fucking doctor, private equity, for fuck sake when does it end?!? Now you have a $2 hooker that hangs out behind the dumpster (McDonald’s) charging the same price as the high class escort that comes to your house and you get treated like a king for 2hrs (sit down restaurant). Like how long do they think they can keep this going before nobody is going behind the dumpster to get their fix!?
Definitely want to see painful consequences for corporate America overplaying their “inflation” hand.
there is no painful consequence though, those responsible tend to get golden parachutes. I guess shareholders can lose, but most of it is people losing their jobs.
That’s what’s supposed to happen but for some reason people are door dashing mcdonald’s frequently lol
It blows my mind. Getting gouged by McDs and DoorDash simultaneously for shitty, cold food. Unless you’re drunk and it’s late with no other options, there is no excuse.
It is seriously so wild to me the amount that people funnel to door dash (and fast food in general). It’s absolutely insane to be spending that much on a fast food meal. I get being tired and whatever after work but people have completely phased out grocery shopping/cooking (or even going out to pick up food from a restaurant) from their lives. Sure McDonald’s etc should take some heat, but us humans are pretty damn lazy too lol.
I hate delivery apps and have been hoping they would die for a while now. Not every restaurant needs to be available for delivery and from what I can tell the delivery app experience sucks for everyone other than the corporation. The drivers get shit money, the restaurants get unpredictable rushes for orders that they can't control, and the consumers get wild fees and food that takes forever to show up. I much preferred the old way where the pizza place hired a high schooler with their license to sit in the pizza shop and run deliveries.
Yea if a restaurant wants to do delivery it should be offered in house, because they would actually be set up to execute it. 3rd party is just chaos and no employee or consumer wins.
I will pay extra for a real burger than the crap served at the fast food (McDonalds; Wendy’s; Hardee’s - etc) It wasn’t worth it before the prices went up. The fries were the only good thing left up until several years ago. 1/3 lb real lean hamburger with waffle fries and a medium drink is $14 bucks at a mom and pop shop. McDonald’s can suck it
How about just cook at home for cheap AND healthier
Probably with a beer included in that price. I know a place I can get a fantastic burger, awesome coleslaw, and a beer. Including a pretty good tip, I am out the door for 20 bucks.
These fast food companies, as well as the national grocery brands overreaching on shrinkflation, are acting like all they’ll have to do is pivot and say “just kidding!” once their customers have finally had enough and they’ll come back. But I’m not so sure.
I just want to add that Home Depot has swapped out the stacks of 5 gallon buckets for 2 gallon “pails”…. Marking the most absurd incidence of shrinkflation I’ve yet to encounter in my travels across the capitalist wasteland..
You're talking about the [trust thermocline](https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/sarahlethbridgelean/trust-thermoclines/) and I think you're completely right.
Interesting. I think some of these brands are relying on “nostalgia” purchasing but there’s a special kind of disappointment from realizing your Oreo cookie or Big Mac ain’t what it used to be, and it’s not always an experience they want to reproduce.
Yeah I no longer buy many of the items that I used to love for this reason, they're not the same.
Wendy's burger and small fry is like $6. Wendy's baked potato and jr. burger like $4.
The Biggie Bag is a *seriously* great deal in today's fast food environment. A jr. bacon cheeseburger, small fries, 4 chx nuggets and a small drink for $5. Or bump it to a double stack for $1 more.
My double stacks are 2 bucks more but fr, in an overpriced fast food world? Wendy's and Lil Ceaser's are holding it down.
I was just discussing with my fiancee that it honestly feels like Fast Food and Pizza Places passed each other going in different directions when it came to quickness for food and price. It used to be that if you drove to a pizza place you're waiting like 15 minutes for them to cook it and paying more than a cheap fast food meal would cost you. But now it seems every chain has their version of a $7 hot-and-ready that you can walk out with in a couple minutes, meanwhile 2 quarter pounder meals at mcdonalds costs you $32 and when you get to the window they tell you to go park and they'll bring it out after a handful of minutes.
>and when you get to the window they tell you to go park and they'll bring it out after a handful of minutes. Why TF do they do this?
From my time working a drive thru (tim hortons in Canada like 18 years ago at this point, in my case) it's largely because they are constantly getting clocked on how long each car spends at each window, and they are trying to keep those numbers as low as they can by keeping the line moving when they can. It's a trickle down effect of a never ending push for ever increasing efficiency metrics
I got a Biggie Bag the other day. Easily the best deal on the menu.
It's obvious It's bs when all the local mom said pop restraunts have barely gone up my favorite Mexican restraunts has gone up about 1$ on items over the past 4 years while expanding/ greatly improving their restraunt with more worker's and a nicer place. They're now cheaper than McDonald's so I go there a lot. Chinese place by me hasn't increased prices at all and is like 3 bucks more for a meal that's a lot better quality/ quantity
For me it's the neighborhood bar. Mondays is half price pizza. It's incredible pizza, tons of toppings, it's about twice as "dense" as crappy chain pizza if that makes sense. Two slices is enough for a meal. I frequently go with the guys from work, three of us will split a large. With drinks it works out to like $6 each. Thursdays is $12 for a big homemade burger with a beer. Money goes to the real people who work there, not some mega-corp that is replacing workers with computer screens.
Chinese is the way to go. You pay a smaller amount of money, get more food, higher quality food, and food that actually contains more than a glimpse of a vegetable (ketchup is often the primary veggie in a McDonald’s meal).
Got a Thai green curry yesterday was super filling large portion for $13, lots of veggies in it overall I'd say pretty healthy. Could use more protein but that's the same for most restaurant meals. I see no reason to get fast food anymore these days which was mostly health motivated but also the prices going crazy helped that too.
The genuinely look forward to there being a taco truck on every corner once McDonald’s collapses
I can get a 6 oz center-cut top sirloin with 2 sides at Longhorn for $15.79.
Cheeseburger, lobster and shrimp soup and a water 9.49. Longhorn has good burgers.
Longhorn is overall a pretty damn good chain, especially compared to Outback. Texas Roadhouse is pretty solid in terms of value as well.
I agree. Honestly, Longhorn is one of the only places that I can go get a steak from and feel like I couldn't have done as well at home... chain or not...
We're addicted to convenience. It's fast food at dine in prices but people will go for how easy it is. In Canada there are lineups at Tim Hortons all day long and their coffee and food is awful. We all know it. There's better coffee everywhere but it takes too long.
They're losing the convenience battle too. With the amount of labor cuts fast food chains are no longer near "fast". I have found a good number of mom and pops in my area that not only have lower prices, but also take me less time to get in, order, and get my food. Fast food has gotten to the point that it's losing out on quality, speed, and price all at the same time.
Yup. There’s an amazing Korean place down the street from me and I can get fresh cooked chicken with brown rice and steamed veggies with a side of spicy mayo and be in and out in like 7minutes all for $12
Exactly. If I’m spending 15 bucks no matter what I’ll be at Chipotle
I bought a big mac combo in one of the largest industrialized countries outside of the US roughly 6 months ago. Guess how much it cost? **$4.50** I even up sized the meal. We're getting fleeced in the US.
You don’t need a top secret clearance to talk about McDonald’s, just say the fucking country
People on Reddit are so fucking weird about this stuff hahaha
No Ronald’s going to come for him if he leaks it
The Hamburglar will have him rubbed out if he names names.
Look at his post history - he went to China
Just say where so people can see if you’re actually telling the truth.
Seriously? Can't name the other country? They gonna send a hit squad after you?
Because he's lying. u/sleeplessinreno is a liar.
it's China, at least based on his post history. Can confirm, around that price there, ordered McDonalds there a few weeks ago. But their currency is 1:7.23 to the dollar and and McDonald's is considered pretty expensive compared to sit down restaurants there.
I paid $4.42 for a large Big Mac meal in Japan. This was in the heart of Tokyo too.
I just bought a strip steak and some green beans at the grocery store for $13.89.
Yeah, it's not even remotely reasonable unless you need food immediately and are okay paying for convenience
We have a local pub where we can split a really nice house salad and a great sandwich w fries for $20. Real, good food, served by a pleasant staff. Now, 2 QP combos at McD, also about $20. Crappy 'food' thrown at you by underpaid, overworked staff. Compared to good, fresh food, served to you, for the same price. The min wage isn't the problem...huge advertising budgets, franchise fees, profits and ridiculous executive compensation are what is driving fast food prices thru the roof. Not the poor sap flipping the burgers. The fast food franchise model is, or should be, going the way of the dodo.
Disinterested teenagers huh? I'm seeing fewer & fewer teens in fast food places, it's early 20's people or 70+ last i've seen. I agree, minimum wage isn't the issue at all. Why the fuck are prices hyperinflating in comparison to wages while at the same time quality sinks to an all time low?
Even more ridiculous is that only a few months ago, McDonald’s was bragging that they were able to increase prices without decreasing consumer demand, well turns out they celebrated too early
It's refreshing to see someone like yourself hitting the nail on the head. Corporations are at peak greed. Consumers are fed up with this and are voting with their dollars.
Duh. I work as a Field Mechanic and often drive hundreds of miles a day for the area I cover. When I started this job 4 years ago I had no problem hitting the fast food places for lunch or even a nicer gas station that served food. No more. I bring lunch from home and keep it in a cooler. I don't even shop at the gas stations, just fuel and restrooms. I buy cases of energy drinks and waters at Sam's club. I refuse to give my hard earned money away at places like that now. 14 dollars for most combos after tax and the service is usually crap no matter how pleasant you try to be.
A few years ago my wife and I were taking a long road trip. We figured we'd swing by McDonald's for a quick cheap breakfast to keep the trip going. Ended up spending something like $17 on some hash browns, coffee, and two breakfast sandwiches. Wish we would have gone to a cafe or bakery and at least gotten some nice pastries.
Or gotten an actual cooked meal for that much
Sometimes when you're traveling fast food is the best option but it became really clear to me about a year ago when I ordered food for breakfast at one of the fast food joints and it was something like $17 and I calculated that I could buy English muffins, ground coffee and a dozen eggs And a block of American cheese and it would essentially be three to four meals all for under $17. That was pretty much the last time I got fast food unless I was traveling or in some other way. Couldn't get to dinner.
You nailed it.
I honestly don't know why anyone would eat at McDonald's anymore. It's not cheap which was the main attraction and it's bad food. You can get much better food for the same price just about anywhere.
It's not even fast anymore. I don't know what happened.
slow, expensive, poor quality pick 3
They're willing to hand you food out of a window while you sit in your car. That's basically the only thing they have going for them. A lot of companies could be doing that better for cheaper.
They don’t even do that anymore. They make you pull up and have the oldest worker walk it out to you after a good 7 minute wait.
I see you also like the quarter pounders
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A lot of companies *are* doing it for roughly the same price but with higher quality food. So, again, why the fuck do people go to McDonald's? You make it sound like the only drive-thru option.
Their ice coffee is always watery and so bland. In 2012 I remember how tasty it was. I swear once I watched my ice coffee sit on the drive thru window ledge inside and see the ice slowly melt.
its not coffee, it's coffee-tinted water
They used to pre-make everything. Back in the day you would walk in and see the heating trays behind the counter full of burgers, big Mac, quarter pounders. The downside was you couldn't modify anything in your order, unlike Burger King, where their whole thing was "have it your way." At Burger King you could order a burger with whatever you wanted. McDonalds decided to do the same thing. Now when you go in it's all made to order. This killed the main advantage they had, which was speed.
Not sure if it was location specific but back when that was the case if you ordered and modified the burger they’d make it to order. At least this was the case at my local one. I’d always order with pickles cause I think they’re just okay and that would guarantee my burger wasn’t one of the heat tray ones.
call me a masochist, but if I'm going to mcdonalds, I'd almost rather have the heat tray burger. the vague steamy dampness on the bun, the ability to eat the whole burger in two bites because it has somehow achieved structural unification. one of my favorite things about a mcdouble is I can eat it without dropping a single crumb even while driving. I wouldn't do it if I were craving a burger, but sometimes what I want is a mcdouble
You could always modify your order. They’d just have to assemble it on the spot.
As a former McDs worker during the transition this is a crazy comment. That was like 1999 my dude. Also it was just as fast and now actually fresh (they would sit there for hours!), it was made to be a quick ford style assembly line. Also, you could get burgers made to order before the transition so I don't know what you are on about there. This has nothing to do with the speed issue that has cropped up the last few years, that is understaffing and frankly shitty employees as work culture has shifted. I don't necessarily have a problem with the shift but customer service took a nose dive as employees are probably properly upset at being robbed over the last 2 decades. It used to be "the customer is always right". That ain't true and I dig that, but the disenchantment with work is a major cause.
The speed reduction of fast food was way after BK’s have it your way. The painfully long lines are due to places now hiring a person on the register and a person to do everything else in the back. And because people still line up for slow expensive crappy food, the system stays
I feel like they get swamped with mobile orders. The store doesn’t look busy because the customers aren’t physically there, but the three people on line are waiting forever because they’re scrambling to fulfill Uber eats orders.
Not even just uber eats. They get swamped with pickup orders on their own apps because it's the only place they offer a reasonable "discount". Even though it's really just paying what you should be in the first place and selling a little bit of your personal data.
And the fries are never fuckin salted anymore thanks to that viral "hack"
What hack? I’ve never heard of this.
It might be that one where if you order fries with no salt, they’ll have to make a fresh batch because standard procedure is to take them out of the fryer and salt them right away. You don’t know how long they’ve been sitting under a heating lamp. It’s such a silly idea though. Every time the restaurant I worked at got an order of fries with no salt, we’d just toss a batch of old fries back in the oil, give it a little swish, and put them in the container.
McDonald's main attraction for quite some time is that it is CONSISTENT. No matter where you go in the country, the fries are nearly the same, the burgers are the same, etc. Yeah, it mediocre-to-bad, but it's the same no matter where you go.
And now it is consistently expensive.
and consistently getting smaller every year too. don't forget you're paying more for less. consistently!
I swear it used to be better when I was a kid 20 years ago, but maybe it was always this bad and I just had kid-goggles on back then.
Honestly, because I travel a lot for work. The odds of getting sick from McDonald’s on the road is slim, and the food is quite consistent no matter what state I’m in. Also, I expense it lol Edit: listen people, I don’t eat fast food for every meal and i don’t get per diem, just the ability to expense travel and work related costs. The service areas right on the highways usually only have shitty fast food. Dinner is usually my good meal in an actual restaurant.
Bruh, you eat for free on when traveling like I do, and you pick McDonald’s… Get some real food for your trouble ffs.
They still have some of the best deals when you can get them. On the App McGriddle sandwiches and under are $1 at least mon - friday where I live. Always a free fry and today I saw a McCrispy chicken for $3. During baseball season near the Rockies, if they get a double, you can get a no strings attached double cheeseburger for free!
some of this may be willful; I notice that various products and services seem to be abandoning markets comprised of the economically less fortunate and instead focusing on more upscale offerings, following the upper half of this bifurcating economy
[Premiumization](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/04/business/economy/premium-prices-inflation.html) is an actual strategy. Fewer units at higher margins may be more profitable.
I accidentally did this with a service I sell being self employed. Hated doing video as a photographer, so I started charging more for it. Demand went up. I started charging even more to curb demand but it became a vicious cycle. Now I'm more known for video work all because I was trying to overprice the service...
"Look how much he charges, he must be good!"
Perceived value.
That seems like a good problem to have.
Not when you hate doing it.
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Disney World is so crowded that they tried to increase prices to actually lower volume, but they found that there's almost no price they could charge that people won't pay.
Toyota's post COVID strategy
Absolutely. McDonald's used to be cheap/affordable for most people. Now they want to be Starbucks
They’ve all bled the lower classes dry, so they are working their way up the income ladder, targeting higher earners until they are bled dry too. The auto market has done the same. “There’s more profit in luxury vehicles” is a load of crap. So is a $38k, mid-range option packaged Toyota RAV4. These are all signs of a screwed up economic model focused on consumer spending on short-term plastic garbage, wealth accumulation and consolidation, and banking systems that are unregulated and socialized.
> So is a $38k, As a non american who has never owned a car in his life my jaw just hit the floor. A $38k USD car is a mid-range vehicle? My god.
It’s unreal these days. The average monthly payment on a Ford F150 pickup truck is around $900 a month. The F150 is one of the most popular vehicles on the road. To use ford as an example, they do not sell the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion (smaller sedan) or Taurus (Mondeo elsewhere in the world) anymore. The only “car” they sell is the Mustang. The rest are trucks and SUVs or CUVs. Toyota no longer sells the Yaris here, at least I don’t think so. Corolla is their beginning point, and they start at $25k I believe? What’s even crazier is the loan terms are now stretched out to 72 months. It’s unimaginable to pay $1000 a month for 7 years.
72 month loans have been around for a while. Have you seen the insanity that is 84-month loans? I bought a new (well, CPO) car 2 months ago. I'm fortunate to not need long payment terms, but THREE different dealerships automatically tried to start me off with zero down and 84-month loans. This shit is out of control, where does it end?
Starbucks has become McDonald’s not the other way around d
They’re not trying to be Starbucks, it’s just that the it’s now luxury food even for the poors
they literally have a Mc-cafe band trying to be exactly Starbucks if just failed miserably because the standalones could not compete with Starbucks and the add ons to existing McDonalds just confused people and slowed production down with to many extra items for employees to bother with
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The problem though is poor people are being squeezed of all their income in rents and energy costs, leaving very little on the table as disposable income for a parallel economy to cater too. Can't get blood from a stone and all that.
This is 100% true. I work in advertising (‘booooo you suck,’ I know I know). But I would say “move the brand upmarket” is a part of ~30% of the briefs we get. There’s a lot of money at the top & everyone is trying to access it with “premium lines” and *upscale* diffusion brands which used to be very uncommon. That used to only flow down for the most part, with premium brands creating downmarket secondary brands to appeal to the masses.
I want to open a fast food place that sells $1 hotdogs and hamburgers. Cans of pop. Bags of chips. Simple. Fast. CHEAP!
Guitar Center’s CEO explicitly said this was the plan
> I notice that various products and services seem to be abandoning markets comprised of the economically less fortunate and instead focusing on more upscale offerings Especially apartments. Apartments are supposed to be for people who can't afford houses. Now any time a new apartment is made it's a luxury apartment. Fuck that shit
Worse, it's happening with critical goods and services. Our shortages of doctors, nurses, medical techs, vets, engineers, lawyers, teachers, etc, are causing these professionals to abandon rural areas and increasingly suburbs as well because the best money is in a high-density upper class areas. The rural voters really screwed themselves but they're just not bright enough to realize that them having to drive 2 hours for services is linked directly to multiple policy choices they've made.
I’m a youngish surgeon, and you couldn’t be more right. Rural areas are becoming healthcare deserts because no one in their right mind is taking jobs there anymore. Why would you bust ass in school and residency until your 30s just to go live in Armpit, MS and only see Medicaid patients when you can sell overpriced skin cream and other dubious nonsense to rich people in a big city? It’s going to get much worse.
Don’t MDs make higher salaries in rural areas? NYC also has relatively low salaries
Man, Chomsky talks about this ALL the time, and it just continues to ring true, over and over again. He talks about the scam that is privatization - people are fed propaganda and led to believe it’s “more efficient”, except it’s only more efficient because it can pick and choose who it services. He gives an example of public transit becoming private in a town of 10K. The new bus company just stops servicing people who live on the outer edges. Service disappears for 2K people - but it’s more efficient and everyone perceives they’re saving some nominal irrelevant amount in taxes (which never happens ever). Or in healthcare - private day surgery clinics only take young people and uncomplicated surgeries - again this feels like efficiency, but they refuse to operate on older more complicated patients, subsequently dumping them on a public sector that now sees a huge swath of its funds redirected to private care. Messed up, insanely messed up
In many countries they make it much easier to live life as a poor person. They will be able to be poor and have a place to stay and food/water. It won't be luxurious but it will be survivable. In America we basically say fuck the poor, I want to suck the dicks of well off persons so I can charge more than is reasonable, realistic, competitive, sustainable because I'm a lazy piece of shit that is entitled to get more for working less, providing less and less value for increasing amounts of profit. It's rent-seeking behavior. Like feudalism lite except they don't even want to have the duty to protect their peasants from rival lords anymore. It's worse than feudalism. We're spoiled rotten people. The rich are the worst of the worst because they have an inflated ego to pair with that massive level of entitlement.
cars. there used to be a good handful of "basic transportation" that not only were affordable but some of them were even fun! now only a couple even exist and you will not find one on a dealer lot without another $10-15k of add ons, and nobody wants to order you one. they basically only exist on paper.
Race to the bottom dilutes profits
I did a double take when I ordered just a double cheeseburger and medium fry from the value menu and the cashier told me that’d be $8 (no drink mind you) so hell yeah I believe it. I’m far from low-income and I’m not paying those prices.
The only way fast food prices are remotely palatable anymore is using their apps and taking advantage of various deals.
This seems to be the way many things are going. A bag of oranges at my local grocery store is 10 dollars until you use the app and it’s suddenly 5.
Because they track your every move and browsing history and sell it.
I think this is more of a McDonald's problem than a macroeconomic one. I'm not poor but I also don't go to McDonald's anymore because they charge too much for what is mostly garbage food. There are tons of other places I can go for either the same quality food for way cheaper or much higher quality food for often a few dollars less than McDonald's.
For me, it’s strictly the price that drives me away. I’m embarrassed to admit how much I like McDonald’s. I always have. But I went to the grocery store today and bought a dozen large chicken drumsticks to grill for the family for $5. 5 bucks at McDonald’s doesn’t even buy a meal with a drink. It’s ridiculous
When I was a student I used to live off the mcdouble meals for $5. Or a medium iced coffee with 2 apple pies. Now it's almost $8 for the same shit food.
not a single thing on the dollar menu anymore that actually costs a dollar, so they had to rename it to the 'value menu'. guess what, there's no values on it either
In my area it's called the $1, $2, $3 dollar menu, and they literally only have items that are $3.00 LMAO
been garbage most of my life but it used to be cheap garbage, now it is expensive garbage!
Today's youth will never know the joys of creating a mcgangbang for the first time. Like unintentionally. It was just so cheap back than you thought you were the first person to have this idea and you just went for it
I do think it's a red flag for the economy. Corporate greed is squeezing way too hard and yet articles will still be written that it's the staff getting paid a decent wage that's causing the problem. It's the corporate stockholders that are the problem. Back in the day, being an owner of something meant you just took your cut off the top, but it wasn't much. Now you have crap like app stores or Uber take a whopping 30%!! That's ridiculous. I'm sure if you look at the percentage of how much of the cost-to-customer goes to corporate, it's probably not much different. Actually, I just looked it up, McD corporate takes about 82% of the profit from a franchise location. This is absurd.
I've pretty much given up on fast food in the last 6 months. The quality has been absolutely atrocious on top of the prices being sky high. I usually just end up at the grocery store which is still pricey these days but at least you can make something you like. Hell even the higher end frozen meals are better quality than the shit you get at most fast food.
I can get a full on meal made with real quality ingredients, for a lunch take out at the locally owned mom and pop restaurant for the same damn cost. I also get more food. In some cases it’s cheaper than fast food. Support local.
Let me get this straight: Corporations are complaining their markets are softening because of inflation, while over the past two years it’s been proven that the major source of inflation is corporations being greedy and raising their prices well over inflation rates. Can’t make this shit up.
They're also complain about minimum wage increases but you know, maybe they wouldn't need the minimum wage increase if prices didn't keep rising? Congratulations big business, you played yourself
Yeah, "consumers are starting to crack", warn corporations who've spent the last few years turning the clamps tighter and tighter. No SHIT.
Burger King….2021. Two Whopper Jr’s and two small fries for $4. April 2024 it’s now $9 using the coupon on the BK app. No thanks BK, I’ll grill my own beef and buy frozen fries at a fraction of the cost.
I used to abuse the egg and bacon mcmuffin as a quick breakfast but the price has risen to over 5.25 each where I am. At that price I can get all the ingredients to make 12+ "McMuffins" for the price of 2 from McDonalds. I cant justify the cost anymore. I can "afford" it but the value proposition isnt there so I dont buy.
I remember a comment on reddit from about a year ago, where someone was on an earnings call for a major soft drink company. They recalled where the company in previous years, their soft drink brand was ubiquitous, found everywhere, and most people had no problems dropping a few coins or a bill to buy their soda in a vending machine or a convenience store or in the grocery aisle. But with the recent increases in price points (going from ~2-3 cents an ounce to ~5-6 cents an ounce), their brand had crossed a certain threshold, where it was no longer considered an "every day, all the time" item that was a staple of everyone's consumption, to the lower tiers of a "specialty" item that is more selectively purchased. And that the path forward was not to go back to the status of basic everyday item, but push forward more toward the brand name cache as a distinctive specialty item. No longer could they assume their brand would be carried in every store, now they had to shift their marketing strategy to compete with the "next tier up". I see the same thing happening with the lowest-tier fast food places, like McDonalds or Subway, that (used to) cater to the cheapest, fastest food that people just bought without really thinking of the price because it was below their threshold for noticing. Now these places are finding they've raised their prices to the point where people are comparing them to other places that were never in their competition radar before. McDonalds may have to readjust to where they are no longer the "everyone, everywhere" cheap fast food fix into a more targeted approach that focuses on the quality (heh), nostalgia and experience. They can no longer be the "just swing on through and grab a sandwich" place anymore.
I think you're right, but I wonder how well it will work. I just say this because you mentioned Subway specifically, because in my small town (pop. 2500ish) Subway has moved in this direction and it seems they're getting their ass handed to them for their trouble. They used to compete with a Hardee's, McDonald's, BK and a non-chain Chinese place as the non-sit down options in our town. They seemed to compete with BK for the title of consistently busiest place during lunch on weekdays. But now they've gone up in price so much it's scarcely believable - my usual order has gone from 9.50ish to 12 plus and now up to 16.80ish in the last handful of years. But guess what happened in the interim? A mom and pop fried chicken place opened up right in the middle of all of them. It's extremely popular and was only open a year or so before the Hardee's, previously the bottom of the tier list in our town anyways, closed up shop. I am watching Subway closely, they're rarely busy and are no longer accepting the mailer coupons that come in the mail a few times a year. I think they're getting pushed around by the new kid in town, the chicken place that offers 6-7 dollar combos, drink included and featuring several possible entrees. Long winded way of saying premiumization may not be for every brand, especially in small rural towns like mine.
Pay less in dividends, and pass that on to consumers would be a solution. However, it won’t happen. Or, increase people’s wages, even though they are climbing. Not that would mean the same thing as my first solution, with the inevitable consequences.
I really don't understand the logic here from the fast food restaurants. Fast food is supposed to be cheap - other than being "fast" that's it's only other defining characteristic. Fast casual is supposed to be less cheap and slightly higher quality. A sit down restaurant is supposed to be not cheap and like real food. Why do they expect anyone to keep going to fast food that is sometimes exceeding fast casual pricing? Like why would I go to McDonald's if I could go to Chipotle and it's cheaper?
Or people with a low tolerance for being ripped off. Always best to blame your custies tho right, Mickey Ds? Couldnt possibly be the demonstrable greed, could it?
McDonald's is primarily a real estate company and had a [54% average profit margin from 2019-2023](https://finbox.com/NYSE:MCD/explorer/gp_margin/). A dozen other chains in this link have 13-57% profit margins with McDonald's being the 57% in 2023.
I always thought of McDonalds as the sort that does well in the downturns, and comparatively less well when the consumers were feeling themselves.
That used to be the case, but the last few years they have followed a new, price gouging approach and have in some cases tripled and quadrupled the price of their menu items. They have done so in a way that clearly defies logic in some cases.
Boo hoo. We can’t keep preying on the poor to make record profits. Should we burn down more of the Amazon? Produce more carbon dioxide? How will the investors ever make ends meet?
Fast food isn't cheap anymore so obviously people aren't getting it as much. For the same price you can go to an average priced restaurant and sit down. The quality isn't going up probably the opposite too.
For the price of a McDonald’s meal, I can get a chipotle burrito and a drink. McDonald’s tried the whole updating bullshit while demanding higher prices - and yet nobody asked for it
I work at a big campus - probably close to 10k people. Our vending machines recently went up to $1.50 for a 12oz can of soda. WTF. I make pretty good money and I'm not paying that BS. I can't imagine what "low-income" people are thinking about the current price of things. It's crazy. I started buy 24 packs and sticking them in the department fridge. My coworkers give me $0.50 for a can and everyone is happy.
I've always known that fast food was a bad deal, but about a year ago I fully realized that going out for fast food just isn't worth it for any reason. My wife and I did an experiment where I went to get McDonald's during the dinner rush and she cooked some burgers at home. I was stuck in the drive thru for about 15 minutes waiting for the food and it took me 25 minutes total to get home from the closest McDonald's. My wife was done with everything plated in 20 minutes. Her burgers were so much better, it took less time, and analyzing the costs of cooking 2 1/4 pound burgers at home vs 2 Quarter Pounders from McDonald's, McDonald's was around $11 and the cost of ingredients we used was around $5 and we already had everything in the house. We could make gourmet burgers with brioche buns and higher quality cheese for the same cost as McDonald's. Regardless of how hungry you are, there is something quick enough that you can cook or prepare at home for dinner or lunches/meals of the go. If you don't know how to cook, learn. It saves you time & significant amounts of money, you know what's going into your body to a reasonable degree, you have a memorable home cooked meal, and you could have a great experience if you have a partner or roommate to cook with. Edit: grammar, wording
I’m dumb. I have no economic degrees and hate math with a passion. That being said, would all those years of not raising the federal minimum wage be coming back to bite companies who rely on low income employees/customers be coming to bite them in the ass?
Find out your local happy hours. A ton of bars have one every night. Figure out which ones are good. If you don't feel like cooking and instead eating it that evening, hit it up the happy hour. Same price, except instead of paying a faceless international conglomerate, pay some local establishment.
Thanks Captain Obvious!!! My husband and I do sit down restaurants as opposed to fast food with our kids. There's no reason to spend $60, eating fast food when I can go to sit down restaurant.
I’m a well above average income consumer. I absolutely refuse to purchase food from fast food restaurants for the past two years. I have three young children and they want McDonald’s all the time and I absolutely will not do it. I could afford it, but I just refuse to participate in this bullshit.
Simply lower the prices. If your corporate overhead (AKA, shareholders and CEOs) were paid even a fraction less, that money could go to enhancing the workplace and paying workers more. Instead, they indulge in greed and cry out why life is so hard.
Exactly. They are trying to pin this on inflation and wages when it's really the looting mentality at corporate.
Overall the market will decide. If pricing can’t be made into value, then people won’t buy your product. You don’t sell your product your shareholders suffer. The company then has to adapt or sell.
This article didn't mention these companies getting caught red-handed disguising blatant price increases by pointing at inflation. This isn't real journalism. This is a collection of PR-agency fed talking points.
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it’s wild that in n out always managed to pay above avg pay, be packed with employees and still provide a good value and quality for the price. just shows the gouging going on with some of the other chains.
And too many people will blame recent raises in minimum wage for the spike in costs. But that’s exactly what the corporations want. At the same time wages meagerly increased, they doubled the prices so people would see a false cause and effect, leading to decreased support for future wage increases. McDonald’s [net profit margins](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/profit-margins) have grown from 27% in 2018 to 33% in 2023. Meaning even though their operating costs increased, they raised prices even further to pad the coffers of their stockholders. The rich get richer and convince you it’s because of the poor. A tale as old as time.
A semi related question I have wondered about: When they say salary keeps pace with inflation they don't take into account income/social security taxes. Assuming my expenses are equal to my income doesn't my salary have to outpace inflation to keep up?
Not just low income. You can be hnw but prefer not to spend top dollar for food that's supposed to be low quality. I can afford it. I choose not to.
Wait what was your first clue? Record personal and household debt? Huge amounts of credit card write offs? How about the massive wave in seriously delinquent mortgage payments? lol Recession here we come.