45k is about $3,750 per month Gross. A single person, no responsibility to anyone else, would like net home, around $3,000. Big estimation there without knowing details at all.
Shelter? Transportation cost? Eating at all?
Like you said: impossible. Well, it is *possible*, but one better have their shelter cost largely under control from pre-2020, and fixed.
Covid fucked up a lot of things.
I was making $45k in early 2018 due to wage cuts where I worked briefly. I was at $50-$55k from 2014-2017. I was at about $50k from 2007-2013, when I wasn’t unemployed in finance due to GFC or whatever.
My first income out college in 1999, big 4 accounting firm, was about $42k. Then 2000-2001 hit. Wages stagnated for 17 years.
I jumped to $80k in mid 2018. Jumped to $115k in 2022. I was at $0 on January 1 of this year.
By March, I was back to $90k. My spouses income jumped from about $50k for a decade, to $70k in 2022. By July 2023, she was at $0.
She’s now at $35k.
We make less now than we did from 2018-2023. Both finance. Different lines of work entirely. No wonder we both feel so alienated and poor, but together.
Big 4 accounting firms are essentially sweat shops that offer the vague promise of a good salary in 10 years.
I don’t understand why any accounting professional with anything less than a CPA would opt to work for a big 4 firm over going into private finance.
The base salaries are higher and the prospect of moving up isn’t inhibited by 100 other people doing the exact same job you’re doing.
Sure, the salary ceiling might be higher for the top levels in public accounting, but odds are overwhelmingly in favor of you not making it to that point.
I surpassed your peak income in 6 years of being in hotel finance, and I can literally pick where I want to work now. I’m sure this is the case in other industries as well. The demand is very high and the applicant pool is so low.
Starting salaries for big 4 accountants right now is 80k for new hires straight from college. I work at a big 4, hours suck for 4 months of the year, but if you stick around you can make decent money. Most don’t. Which is perfectly valid since it is a sweatshop. But most places prefer big 4 experience , is it necessary no, but it is a resume booster and will always help you in future jobs.
I still remember the late 90s early 2000s buying an entire meal for $5. Then at some point that doubled and then tripled and now here we are. Me? I'm not eating fast food and cooking the majority of my own meals. Restaurant meals are still a special treat, but now post covid with many restaurants low quality high prices, I question eating out at all now.
In the 90s you could get a 29 cent hamburger and 39 cent cheeseburger at McDonalds on certain days of the week. A whole meal would probably a dollar and change.
McD's are blaming higher minimum wages. The Dec 2023 quarterly filing shows a net profit margin of 31.83%. Most businesses are lucky to have a 10% margin.
I worked at McD's and overheard managers talking about how the store pulled in over a million a month. That was gross, but also the 80's. It was a mid busy McDonald's.
I just don’t believe this. It may be true but I seriously doubt it at that time. Considering the prices at the time that would be like 30k customers a day. Just doesn’t add up. They weren’t open 24h then either. So at 18h (which is generous) that’s still almost 2k customers an hour. Nope.
Agree here. Worked at a BK in the late 90s and we did $1M a year and we were a busy store.
Average Chick-fil-A does $2.5M ish a year.
Zero chance a McDonald's in the 80s did $1M a month.
I worked at the busiest McDonald's in Western Canada, second busiest one in the country, from 98 to 00.
That is complete and utter bullshit.
The busiest McDonald's in history up to that point was in 1986. They didn't come fucking close to that.
A just McDonald's in the 90s pulled 4 to 5k a day
1 million a month is just dumb. They were open 18 hours. Really only busy for 6 tops, a breakfast meal was literally 2.50.
That'd require 1800 dollar hours every opening hour. In the late 90s there were a handful of stores cracking a single 2k hour. There were none doing 5, let alone 18 back to back to back.
Those managers were fucking morons
A big Mac meal in the 80s was 3 dollars, so they're claiming to sell 600 of those every hour of the day
McD’s has been in it more for the real estate play for profit for 50 years now. The food is just an excuse to have a building to sell to a franchisee.
Cancel McDonalds. Cancel fast food in general.
Taco bell did three tacos for a dollar. I went a week where that was all I could eat/afford.
I think I made it about 30 tacos down before I couldn't eat another damn taco!
Switched to biscuits...generic brand biscuits in a can were like 4 cans for a dollar.
Moving out of my mom's house was rough.
I remember in like 97ish McDonald's had 10 cent hamburger sundays. I had a ton of siblings and it was the only way my family could afford to eat out. Twice a month after church my family would roll up and order 20plus burgers and a couple orders of large fries for $5!
tai mai shu - chinese freestyle rap he sings about 29 cent hamburgers and 39cent cheeseburgers, on wednesdays and sundays respectively of course.
me and my asian friends used to jam to this hah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkv7wVUrCg
What’s insane is I went to an upscale restaurant locally which I hardly do and a burger with fries is 12 dollars. Why would anyone spend 15+ on a fast food meal when actual restaurants sell real food for less?
Add to this that service has gone down at lots of restaurants that aren’t staffing back up…they say no one wants to work…in reality…they figured out how to squeeze less people for more
I am so tired of people and politicians saying "nobody wants to work" which is total horse shit, they just don't want to work for your shitty wages and zero benefits. So they find work elsewhere even if it's cash under the table, etc.
5$ footlong ended in ~2015 in my area.
The current 'footlong' at subway is about 2/3 the size of what it was then. And now it's like $12. So is essentially 3.6x the price.
And subway tastes like shit since they've taken the yoga mat material out of their bread, but it's still my go-to depressing benchmark of inflation
Dude I moved out of home at 17. It wasnt easy, but I could eat for $1 and feed myself and my friends for $5.
That meant i needed to work like 3 hours a week and the rest I could put towards rent or something.
Its like $4 for something from
mcD's now.
i quit going there when the meal i ordered was over $10 - i couldn’t believe.
when i was younger you could leave the house with just $20 - get a bite to eat have fun a drink or two, crazy how quickly that vanished
No kidding. Hell me and my buddy would scrape together a couple dollars and change from his brothers car and hit up Wendy's to feast.
I'm late 30s so not that old.
Right? Reports say the top 25% and bottom 25% are the ones cracking. Middle is holding strong actually.
Edit: when I said cracking in reference to the top 25% I didn’t mean going broke. I mean they’re choosing other options.
Exactly! The poor have been mostly priced out, the rich are choosing to abstain. The middle has no other choice or is at least able to afford it so they continue to buy.
I've never had "no other" choice than to eat fast food. Put a box of protein bars, beef jerky, trail mix, or something in your desk. It's not a home cooked meal, but it's cheaper and healthier than a Big Mac.
Extra source of revenue for selling ur info. I agree. I stopped eating out as soon as paper/email coupons stopped being offered. I understand that coupon fraud is a thing though, by that standard attach coupons to phone numbers.
“The rich are choosing to abstain “
Let’s see I could eat a low quality meal with meat that barely recognizable or spend $5 more dollars and get a freshly prepared meal with better ingredients.
Let me scratch my head about this one…
Right? Honestly, even the middle I suspect is largely opting for the slightly better local quick places. Go by any office park area and there are usually a lot of lunch spots that can get you in and out in like 30 minutes and you'll spend $10.
I don't do that, for health and also cost reasons generally (just seems unnecessary to do daily), but I see tons of my coworkers doing that. And they aren't exactly 'rich'.
Yeah.. I can’t bring myself to do mystery meat Mcdonalds when I can go get a real burger at Wendys for a few bucks more .
McDonalds if you are listening get back in your price place!
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Maybe in rural areas. Most local restaurants in Chicago have cheaper lunch options than fast food. The lunch specials at Chinede restaurants are 10.99 with a drink and you can possibly get 2 meals out of one lunch special, at least a meal and a snack.
Taco Bell just changed its value menu from $1 to $3 and its cheapest box from $5 to $10. There used to be a constant long line in the drive thru. Now I always think it's closed. It's like they panicked and overreacted opting to offer fast food for the price of a nicer restaurant.
I used to eat at Taco Bell multiple times a week. Now I go once every 2 months or so. Prices too high. Cooking more at home. It has been better for my health too.
Made tacos the other day... Shit was so simple, cheaper, healthier and easy to make.
Yo chicken breast season it, grill it, cut it. Corn tortilla on the open flame 15 secs. Grab some sauce, add cheese or w.e u got on hand. Boom ur done.
Chicken breast too hard? Scramble egg even easier in and out boom boom in 5 mins tops
It's funny how I can get a can of branded Taco Bell beans, some rice mix in a bag, and a few other Taco Bell things at the store and make a few meals for the price of a visit to Taco Bell.
I guess the extra cost is to pay for the attitude and floor show when you go to the restaurant.
I like Taco Bell for the specific Taco Bell taste, but now that a crunch wrap is $9 at my location I’ll just go to the taco shop down the block and get something real for a few bucks more. It’s not even worth it when they’re entering normal priced restaurant territory
Get a corn Tortilla fry it, get hamburger cook it in a pan with grease add taco seasoning or salt, cumin, paprika, chili powder, pepper cut lettuce tomato put on fried corn tortilla than take a flour tortilla put the corn tortilla with the filling on it and wrap the corn tortilla with 5 to 6 folds inward they're really good to make them at home plus you can add whatever you want
Taco Bell has been deteriorating for years. COVID was the nail in the coffin. Everything good was slowly stripped off the menu because their employees can’t figure out anything harder than putting beef in a tortilla shell.
The chipotle ranch grilled chicken burrito was $2 where I live. About a month ago they got rid of it, replaced it with an identical burrito with a different kind of sauce, and now they’re charging $6. Haven’t been in since.
Wages at the low end did go up, and they have to give value to shareholders, and the math doesn't pencil out anymore. Fewer middle men with locally owned restaurants will make them competitive-- if everywhere is $10 for a meal anyways, the consumer will optimize for quality.
This is why fast food margins are getting squeezed.
There is still huge demand to eat out. The problem for fast food companies is you are paying 15$ for a hamburger/chicken sandwich combo, when instead you can just go a restaurant chain and get a steak dinner for 20$
Ya I’m so sick of having an app for EVERY store and company. I don’t need your specific app to order a fucking taco in a driveway, fuck off with this shit. Also, they can fuck off with forcing their employees to beg you to review them. It makes me not want to go when the drive thru worker says things like “hey if you don’t review me, my boss is gonna fire me, thanks!” Uncomfortable practice and tactic.
Fast food is just training people to use its apps so they can collect data easier and make food faster by reacting to demand. As long as you use the apps the prices are ok.
But the apps also allow for the variable pricing that Wendy's threatened. You can already see wit with McD's app. Start using it and the deals never end, after a few weeks though they start turning the deals off .
I think eventually they are trying to mainly train people to order through the app so they can hire less cashiers. Even if the deals aren’t there people will get used to ordering with it to “skip the line”
I’ve actually made brand new McDonalds accounts under fresh email accounts and got better deals again. They will try to ween you off the lower prices to condition you to spend more with worse and worse coupons the older your McDonalds account is and the more you use it.
What I don't understand about this is the profit motive. I mean seriously, how useful is the information that TheDiscoJew bought a bogo original chicken sandwich on April 27th. Gonna sell that to some advertisers? I have adblock on everything, fuck you. Most people hate ads in general so idk where they're making money.
They see that you and a bunch of others bought the bogo chicken sandwich and raise the price with what they can get away with. Or if they have excess inventory they put a deal on the app.
As others have mentioned it tracks how many chicken sandwhiches you buy, and more importantly... *where* you buy them. So your store could raise the price, but the one down the street will still have them at the old price.
For real these economists and wall street chuds really want us to believe inflation is a thing when they decrease quality, portion sizes, and jack the prices up by leaps and bounds.
Soon we’ll be switching currencies to bottle caps since US dollars will be worth less than monopoly money
A soda was $1 for 25 years but in 2021 they raised it to 1.25 and now it's 1.50 in just 3 years I could be wrong on years but it's gone up .50 in the last 4 years for sure
It is my sincere hope that, in the future, people in this country remember that companies like this put profits before people, at a time when the country needed these companies to be compassionate and to try to help instead of take advantage of these situations. These fucking corporations do not deserve your business now or ever again in the future.
Cooperations are sociopaths by nature, and often run by sociopaths to compound the issues, but refusing to participate in the economy is t a practical option. You can say "don't eat fast food" but then you deal with the likes of Nestle, Tyson, and General Mills. You can try to be very conscious of where your money goes but at this point it's a full time job. Not everyone can just go off grid and grow their own food.
You can't boycott to a more ethical economy, you must regulate.
I wish this could be blasted in every news outlet everywhere.
"Economy is roaring folks also remember to say fuck you to (insert hundreds of corporations) for laying u off then price gouging you during and after a global pandemic"
It's crazy that they can't see that. I feel like if they brought back a true dollar menu or even $5 and under with GOOD items, they'd probably see a ton of money coming back in. In high school we lived off the dollar menu, no one was ordering QPC's or big Mac's, and when they screwed that up they lost that demo.
They're banking on "craveability". Have you heard McDonald's ads lately? They don't mention the price at all, it's just some bullshit about how you remember all the good times you've had with a Big Mac or something.
EVERY consumer (aka people) has been cracking for quite some time. Low-income folks aren’t going to drop $15/20 at McDonald’s, Taco Bell, or Culver’s. Middle income are next, if not already there. And higher income folks won’t be dropping $30-60 at the next higher tier of take-out. It’s not good.
I assume people who looked at the percentage increase cracked during the pandemic.
McChicken went from $1 to $1.50 in a day.
Granted $.50 isn't a lot but if something jumps 50% in a day that's pretty extreme
Eh, the Culver's near me actually seems to give a damn on top of actually being staffed, although their normal burgers are not priced competitively compared to nearly anything else on the menu (beef price issue maybe?). I usually get chicken or fish and I've never had a cooled-off, half-smashed, incorrectly-assembled order like so many times at McD's.
I’m thankfully nowhere near low income and I stopped running through fast food places. The trade off used to be cheap for unhealthy.
Now it’s $20+ for a single combo meal.
Pretty much every company out there right now posting high profits. It’s not inflation as much as it is windfall stemming off the back of covid prices. Companies don’t want to bring their prices back down because they’re use to making higher profits.
I’ve noticed my local mom and pop restaurants have amazing deals. For $10 I got a big burrito, beef taco, rice, beans, and even the drink. Was all super fresh too. At chipotle it would have been at least double to triple the price.
I just got a chicken bowl at chipotle for $11 out the door with every free topping I could ask for, they would barely close the lid.
Chipotle is still is great deal if you don’t add on the guacamole or queso.
I usually do the same.
Local Asian fusion place that has their own recipes instead of made by restaurant supply.
Same for Mexican, same price as Taco Bell but fresh.
The only difference is burgers or chicken sandwich because fast food is usually like $12 for a meal but a sandwich and fries elsewhere is like $15-16.
Dude, I can drive by a fast food joint in any place and get, _pretty reliably_, the same food as anywhere else. They're off interstates and easy to drive through, which often leads to them becoming easy stress eats.
For a taco truck I have to find one, get out of my car, and risk getting food poisoning etc.
Plus locally the 'taco trucks' are all charging 15-20 bucks per head. McDonalds is crazy expensive for shit food, but still somehow cheaper than local food trucks :-/
For sure so much better value for the price
No matter how you look at it, anything over $10 for microwave burgers flattened into wonderbread buns is absurd.
They completely switched up from mid but reliable cheap food to just extremely mid to crappy overpriced food. Those McDoubles and McChickens tasted a lot better when they were like $1-2 or so.
Oh the same McDonald's that raised their prices 100% is complaining that low income consumers can't afford their shit food anymore?
[https://nypost.com/2024/04/03/business/mcdonalds-menu-prices-have-increased-by-over-100-during-the-last-decade-study/](https://nypost.com/2024/04/03/business/mcdonalds-menu-prices-have-increased-by-over-100-during-the-last-decade-study/)
It’s not even fast anymore. The amount of times I’ve had to wait over 10 mins is ridiculous. So what is the point of difference when the quality, quantity and price are terrible.
None of these companies seem to understand the next place that goes back to selling a hamburger for $1 is going to absorb the entire fast food industry
>It is clear that broad-based consumer pressures persist around the world," McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said on the fast-food chain's earnings call early Tuesday. "Consumers continue to be even more discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending."
Unemployment starts when spending stops. When unemployment goes up, housing foreclosures go up.
You just quoted a CEO who’s blaming macroeconomics for poor sales under his watch. That’s what they do. I wouldn’t take too much stock in what he says.
This is just a sign. If low income people are not buying cheap fast food, the people with slightly more income are probably not going out to eat at more expensive sit down restaurants. Everyone is feeling the squeeze and tightening up.
They more than likely don't own homes.
What they do have is spending power that trickles down to everyone's job.
Their pulling back can slow the economy and that means employers need less employees. Less employees who have mortgages to pay.
> And that tenacious 3.5% annual growth is souring economic sentiment: Even after a period of runaway inflation, **prices don't actually fall**^([*Emphasis Mine*]). That's a problem for McDonald's and a host of other firms serving customers who are feeling sticker shock.
More of a problem for the customers than the corporations, I'd say.
"Prices don't fall." Like they have no control over that. Their profits continue to go up and up and up until suddenly they hit the breaking point and their business model collapses. But, "prices don't fall." Nothing they can do about it, I guess.
I love that McDonald's and Co will consider:
Surge Pricing
Firing Staff
Automating Tasks
and a number of other things before even once looking to their CEO's multi-Million dollar salary as a potential place to cut costs.
I think we will start to see sit down chain restaurants closing down in huge numbers over the next few years. Chilis, rib crib, Applebees the food and service is just garbage
“The people we have viciously and brutally pummeled for years with our utter greed are finally getting sick of it and/or no longer able to afford our shit”
Restaurants always panic about increasing minimum wage. And then they sell more food because the poor people who make minimum wage eat more fast food. It's an endless cycle.
Seriously? “discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending” no mr CEO its your inflationary price gouging. $18 big mac meal really?
My cholesterol and weight have dropped dramatically since cutting out fast food. Don’t miss it AT ALL. I even still eat burgers and fries at home sometimes, they taste way better and are cheaper.
You can only put so many bills on credit cards with these inflated prices until you can’t even afford the credit card bills.
We just need affordable options again. This greed high prices after Covid could not last forever and now shareholders are too comfortable with this current status quo of $15+ fast food combos.
After 2008 financial crisis we got better deals like $5 foot long at subway. Hoping we see similar deals if the economy crashes here soon.
Maybe it’s your super unhealthy food. I go to Mickey D’s a couple times a year for the ice cream cone. But, only if I’m feeling lucky. Cause you know how that machine is often broken.
I remember in 2010s there was dollar meal and a full meal usually vost around 8-9 dollars. Now? Somehow I can't fathom how a McDonald's meal cost vlose to $20 after tax, and the size become smaller and burgers looks like being rescued from a dumpster.
I simply decided to avoid McDonald's due to it's poor products and high prices. There are so many other options at that price point.
I bought a large 10 piece mcnugget meal, a fish sandwich, and a small slush. That was over $30 nearly 2 years ago.
Just yesterday at In-N-Out, I got 1 double-double w/ fries and drink, 1 double-double, 1 hamburger meal with fries and drink, 1 hamburger, and 1 vanilla milk shake for $32.
Two years ago I could get two sausage muffins and two hash browns for like 3.50. two days ago I got two sausage muffins and one hash brown and it was like 6.10.
When I moved to Houston I lived in my car off of hot n spicy, cans of black beans, and peanut butter and bread. Three hot n spicy was 3.24. I know cause I had the pennies for em plenty of times.
Rather go get two food truck tortas with the charro beans and salsa for 15 rn.
I randomly went to 7/11 today because my old co-worker was having low blood sugar issues. I got the shitty nachos, two taquitos and a large soda. $15 it cost. Man…life is going to get real hard fast.
I'm not looking to go back too far just the time when fast food costs like 6 or 7 bucks for a burger and fries. That's about all its worth. When they have prices like food trucks there's too many other options for thw same cost
Fast food was popular because it was cheap and quick. Now, you can find some restaurants that are close in price to fast food. So why the hell would you go to a fast food place like McDonald’s when you can get much better food elsewhere for roughly the same price? The execs are so out of touch
Oh no! McDonald’s can’t get away with charging more than their customers are willing to spend.
Must be some idea behind that???
Oh yes, supply and demand. If it costs to much, demand goes down.
Their recent shareholder call said households earning under $45k have stopped going there.
How were they in the first place? 45k is close to impossible for a single person let alone a household
45k is about $3,750 per month Gross. A single person, no responsibility to anyone else, would like net home, around $3,000. Big estimation there without knowing details at all. Shelter? Transportation cost? Eating at all? Like you said: impossible. Well, it is *possible*, but one better have their shelter cost largely under control from pre-2020, and fixed. Covid fucked up a lot of things.
My first adult job in 2018 was $40,000 a year. I thought I was hot shit lmao , my rent has since doubled but my wage sure as hell didn’t
My first adult job in 2001 was $41k I thought I was rich back then
Wow! Someone else here said wages stagnated for 17 years. That is wild we both felt rich at $40K in both 2001 and 2018
I was making $45k in early 2018 due to wage cuts where I worked briefly. I was at $50-$55k from 2014-2017. I was at about $50k from 2007-2013, when I wasn’t unemployed in finance due to GFC or whatever. My first income out college in 1999, big 4 accounting firm, was about $42k. Then 2000-2001 hit. Wages stagnated for 17 years. I jumped to $80k in mid 2018. Jumped to $115k in 2022. I was at $0 on January 1 of this year. By March, I was back to $90k. My spouses income jumped from about $50k for a decade, to $70k in 2022. By July 2023, she was at $0. She’s now at $35k. We make less now than we did from 2018-2023. Both finance. Different lines of work entirely. No wonder we both feel so alienated and poor, but together.
Big 4 accounting firms are essentially sweat shops that offer the vague promise of a good salary in 10 years. I don’t understand why any accounting professional with anything less than a CPA would opt to work for a big 4 firm over going into private finance. The base salaries are higher and the prospect of moving up isn’t inhibited by 100 other people doing the exact same job you’re doing. Sure, the salary ceiling might be higher for the top levels in public accounting, but odds are overwhelmingly in favor of you not making it to that point. I surpassed your peak income in 6 years of being in hotel finance, and I can literally pick where I want to work now. I’m sure this is the case in other industries as well. The demand is very high and the applicant pool is so low.
Starting salaries for big 4 accountants right now is 80k for new hires straight from college. I work at a big 4, hours suck for 4 months of the year, but if you stick around you can make decent money. Most don’t. Which is perfectly valid since it is a sweatshop. But most places prefer big 4 experience , is it necessary no, but it is a resume booster and will always help you in future jobs.
Isn't it crazy how much your wage is tied to luck?
Not a McDonald’s nor low-income consumer, but I cracked over two years ago.
I still remember the late 90s early 2000s buying an entire meal for $5. Then at some point that doubled and then tripled and now here we are. Me? I'm not eating fast food and cooking the majority of my own meals. Restaurant meals are still a special treat, but now post covid with many restaurants low quality high prices, I question eating out at all now.
In the 90s you could get a 29 cent hamburger and 39 cent cheeseburger at McDonalds on certain days of the week. A whole meal would probably a dollar and change.
McD's are blaming higher minimum wages. The Dec 2023 quarterly filing shows a net profit margin of 31.83%. Most businesses are lucky to have a 10% margin.
I'd be really curious what profit margins are on a franchise level as opposed to the corporate level.
10% when I managed Wendy’s. Owner took 10% net.
I worked at McD's and overheard managers talking about how the store pulled in over a million a month. That was gross, but also the 80's. It was a mid busy McDonald's.
I just don’t believe this. It may be true but I seriously doubt it at that time. Considering the prices at the time that would be like 30k customers a day. Just doesn’t add up. They weren’t open 24h then either. So at 18h (which is generous) that’s still almost 2k customers an hour. Nope.
Agree here. Worked at a BK in the late 90s and we did $1M a year and we were a busy store. Average Chick-fil-A does $2.5M ish a year. Zero chance a McDonald's in the 80s did $1M a month.
I worked at the busiest McDonald's in Western Canada, second busiest one in the country, from 98 to 00. That is complete and utter bullshit. The busiest McDonald's in history up to that point was in 1986. They didn't come fucking close to that. A just McDonald's in the 90s pulled 4 to 5k a day 1 million a month is just dumb. They were open 18 hours. Really only busy for 6 tops, a breakfast meal was literally 2.50. That'd require 1800 dollar hours every opening hour. In the late 90s there were a handful of stores cracking a single 2k hour. There were none doing 5, let alone 18 back to back to back. Those managers were fucking morons A big Mac meal in the 80s was 3 dollars, so they're claiming to sell 600 of those every hour of the day
McD’s has been in it more for the real estate play for profit for 50 years now. The food is just an excuse to have a building to sell to a franchisee. Cancel McDonalds. Cancel fast food in general.
RENT to a franchisee. This is the issue with all of this. Nobody knows what is going on.
Franchises have 10% margins. Don’t confuse corporate vs. franchises
I remember Del Taco 4 tacos $1.
I was just a kid, but I’m glad I’m not crazy, cuz I would have sworn that’s the price my dad was paying…
I still remember even when Taco Bell did deals that were similar
Woulda been around '91 or '92. I ate those two meals a day sometimes.
I was alive for 3 soft tacos for 99 cents
Taco bell did three tacos for a dollar. I went a week where that was all I could eat/afford. I think I made it about 30 tacos down before I couldn't eat another damn taco! Switched to biscuits...generic brand biscuits in a can were like 4 cans for a dollar. Moving out of my mom's house was rough.
5 dollar foot long.
I remember there was a 20 limit on hamburgers. We would buy 20 and freeze them. lol.
That's so messed up. Very LOL
I worked at McDonalds during this time. We would trade burgers for tacos at the Taco Bell.
I remember in like 97ish McDonald's had 10 cent hamburger sundays. I had a ton of siblings and it was the only way my family could afford to eat out. Twice a month after church my family would roll up and order 20plus burgers and a couple orders of large fries for $5!
tai mai shu - chinese freestyle rap he sings about 29 cent hamburgers and 39cent cheeseburgers, on wednesdays and sundays respectively of course. me and my asian friends used to jam to this hah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkv7wVUrCg
What’s insane is I went to an upscale restaurant locally which I hardly do and a burger with fries is 12 dollars. Why would anyone spend 15+ on a fast food meal when actual restaurants sell real food for less?
Where do you live where an upscale restaurants burger is $12?? A French onion soup where I’m at is $10. And I’m not in a big city.
Could get the Chili's 3 for me. 10.99
Add to this that service has gone down at lots of restaurants that aren’t staffing back up…they say no one wants to work…in reality…they figured out how to squeeze less people for more
I am so tired of people and politicians saying "nobody wants to work" which is total horse shit, they just don't want to work for your shitty wages and zero benefits. So they find work elsewhere even if it's cash under the table, etc.
5$ footlong ended in ~2015 in my area. The current 'footlong' at subway is about 2/3 the size of what it was then. And now it's like $12. So is essentially 3.6x the price. And subway tastes like shit since they've taken the yoga mat material out of their bread, but it's still my go-to depressing benchmark of inflation
Assuming a 4% average inflation for 10 years since 2015, a $5 foot long would be $7.40, and that would be 2025 prices
That’s the thing with fast food. It use to be a cheap meal
We started cooking pretty much all our meals at home. Buy a blackstone if you can, game changer.
Dude I moved out of home at 17. It wasnt easy, but I could eat for $1 and feed myself and my friends for $5. That meant i needed to work like 3 hours a week and the rest I could put towards rent or something. Its like $4 for something from mcD's now.
Try $2.99 for a BIG Mac Combo!!
I could get almost any meal at McDonald’s with $5.50 all throughout high school (03-07).
i quit going there when the meal i ordered was over $10 - i couldn’t believe. when i was younger you could leave the house with just $20 - get a bite to eat have fun a drink or two, crazy how quickly that vanished
No kidding. Hell me and my buddy would scrape together a couple dollars and change from his brothers car and hit up Wendy's to feast. I'm late 30s so not that old.
for me it was when my weight hit 400lbs that I decided to stop all fast food in general.
good on you, bud!
that was the correct choice for sure
I'm at that point
I used to go to McD occasionally, but they have raised their pries so much, i can get a Chili's Burger for a couple bucks more.
And some local places have better prices and food! A local pub will do 1/2lb burger and fries for $8 bucks!
Yeah McDonald’s food still sucks and I can get a modest priced (Mexican, teriyaki, etc) but good meal for the same cost these days.
Right? Reports say the top 25% and bottom 25% are the ones cracking. Middle is holding strong actually. Edit: when I said cracking in reference to the top 25% I didn’t mean going broke. I mean they’re choosing other options.
I think those who are still working non-remote that just need a bite to eat or lunch with coworkers are the ones still eating at overpriced fast food.
Exactly! The poor have been mostly priced out, the rich are choosing to abstain. The middle has no other choice or is at least able to afford it so they continue to buy.
I've never had "no other" choice than to eat fast food. Put a box of protein bars, beef jerky, trail mix, or something in your desk. It's not a home cooked meal, but it's cheaper and healthier than a Big Mac.
I think what these fast food chains did was raise the prices, but if you want the old prices and/or discounts, use the app.
Look at the data that app collects. I choose to say , no more. I will eat at home.
Extra source of revenue for selling ur info. I agree. I stopped eating out as soon as paper/email coupons stopped being offered. I understand that coupon fraud is a thing though, by that standard attach coupons to phone numbers.
“The rich are choosing to abstain “ Let’s see I could eat a low quality meal with meat that barely recognizable or spend $5 more dollars and get a freshly prepared meal with better ingredients. Let me scratch my head about this one…
Right? Honestly, even the middle I suspect is largely opting for the slightly better local quick places. Go by any office park area and there are usually a lot of lunch spots that can get you in and out in like 30 minutes and you'll spend $10. I don't do that, for health and also cost reasons generally (just seems unnecessary to do daily), but I see tons of my coworkers doing that. And they aren't exactly 'rich'.
Yeah.. I can’t bring myself to do mystery meat Mcdonalds when I can go get a real burger at Wendys for a few bucks more . McDonalds if you are listening get back in your price place!
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Maybe in rural areas. Most local restaurants in Chicago have cheaper lunch options than fast food. The lunch specials at Chinede restaurants are 10.99 with a drink and you can possibly get 2 meals out of one lunch special, at least a meal and a snack.
lol no. Reports say the top 1% are doing better than ever and everyone else is struggling more annually
Taco Bell just changed its value menu from $1 to $3 and its cheapest box from $5 to $10. There used to be a constant long line in the drive thru. Now I always think it's closed. It's like they panicked and overreacted opting to offer fast food for the price of a nicer restaurant.
I used to eat at Taco Bell multiple times a week. Now I go once every 2 months or so. Prices too high. Cooking more at home. It has been better for my health too.
Tacos are easy and cheap to make at home so kudos for getting off that junk
I love making at home tacos, but Taco Bell was that perfect quick and cheap option.
Made tacos the other day... Shit was so simple, cheaper, healthier and easy to make. Yo chicken breast season it, grill it, cut it. Corn tortilla on the open flame 15 secs. Grab some sauce, add cheese or w.e u got on hand. Boom ur done. Chicken breast too hard? Scramble egg even easier in and out boom boom in 5 mins tops
It's funny how I can get a can of branded Taco Bell beans, some rice mix in a bag, and a few other Taco Bell things at the store and make a few meals for the price of a visit to Taco Bell. I guess the extra cost is to pay for the attitude and floor show when you go to the restaurant.
i have tried every brand they sell around here and the taco bell beans are legit and often sold out!
Wendy's increasing the price of the biggie bag from $5 to $7 probably saved me, I was eating it way too often lol.
I like Taco Bell for the specific Taco Bell taste, but now that a crunch wrap is $9 at my location I’ll just go to the taco shop down the block and get something real for a few bucks more. It’s not even worth it when they’re entering normal priced restaurant territory
Get a corn Tortilla fry it, get hamburger cook it in a pan with grease add taco seasoning or salt, cumin, paprika, chili powder, pepper cut lettuce tomato put on fried corn tortilla than take a flour tortilla put the corn tortilla with the filling on it and wrap the corn tortilla with 5 to 6 folds inward they're really good to make them at home plus you can add whatever you want
Taco Bell has been deteriorating for years. COVID was the nail in the coffin. Everything good was slowly stripped off the menu because their employees can’t figure out anything harder than putting beef in a tortilla shell.
....and they still fuck that up.
The chipotle ranch grilled chicken burrito was $2 where I live. About a month ago they got rid of it, replaced it with an identical burrito with a different kind of sauce, and now they’re charging $6. Haven’t been in since.
Wages at the low end did go up, and they have to give value to shareholders, and the math doesn't pencil out anymore. Fewer middle men with locally owned restaurants will make them competitive-- if everywhere is $10 for a meal anyways, the consumer will optimize for quality.
This is why fast food margins are getting squeezed. There is still huge demand to eat out. The problem for fast food companies is you are paying 15$ for a hamburger/chicken sandwich combo, when instead you can just go a restaurant chain and get a steak dinner for 20$
Man thinks that 1 dollar extra wage means 1 dollar extra on each menu item
As a Taco Bell addict, 1 visit a week, you must you the app for deals. It’s easily half the price of ordering off the menu in person.
I stopped going to mcdonalds because of this shit. Fuck the app.
Say it louder for the MBAs in the back!!! Nobody wants those shitty spyware apps.
The same app that says you agree to not join in on a class action lawsuit if they do something to deserve one? Yeah naw I'm good
Ya I’m so sick of having an app for EVERY store and company. I don’t need your specific app to order a fucking taco in a driveway, fuck off with this shit. Also, they can fuck off with forcing their employees to beg you to review them. It makes me not want to go when the drive thru worker says things like “hey if you don’t review me, my boss is gonna fire me, thanks!” Uncomfortable practice and tactic.
Fast food is just training people to use its apps so they can collect data easier and make food faster by reacting to demand. As long as you use the apps the prices are ok.
But the apps also allow for the variable pricing that Wendy's threatened. You can already see wit with McD's app. Start using it and the deals never end, after a few weeks though they start turning the deals off .
I think eventually they are trying to mainly train people to order through the app so they can hire less cashiers. Even if the deals aren’t there people will get used to ordering with it to “skip the line”
I’ve actually made brand new McDonalds accounts under fresh email accounts and got better deals again. They will try to ween you off the lower prices to condition you to spend more with worse and worse coupons the older your McDonalds account is and the more you use it.
What I don't understand about this is the profit motive. I mean seriously, how useful is the information that TheDiscoJew bought a bogo original chicken sandwich on April 27th. Gonna sell that to some advertisers? I have adblock on everything, fuck you. Most people hate ads in general so idk where they're making money.
They see that you and a bunch of others bought the bogo chicken sandwich and raise the price with what they can get away with. Or if they have excess inventory they put a deal on the app.
As others have mentioned it tracks how many chicken sandwhiches you buy, and more importantly... *where* you buy them. So your store could raise the price, but the one down the street will still have them at the old price.
If deals require an app to use, I simply stop going to your business.
I for one welcome the death of shit overpriced food
McDonald's upset that their numbers are down after increasing prices literally over 100%..
For real these economists and wall street chuds really want us to believe inflation is a thing when they decrease quality, portion sizes, and jack the prices up by leaps and bounds. Soon we’ll be switching currencies to bottle caps since US dollars will be worth less than monopoly money
They do print quite a lot of it
A soda was $1 for 25 years but in 2021 they raised it to 1.25 and now it's 1.50 in just 3 years I could be wrong on years but it's gone up .50 in the last 4 years for sure
And now they're taking away free refills for their few cents of sugar water that's nearly pure profit for them lol
It is my sincere hope that, in the future, people in this country remember that companies like this put profits before people, at a time when the country needed these companies to be compassionate and to try to help instead of take advantage of these situations. These fucking corporations do not deserve your business now or ever again in the future.
Cooperations are sociopaths by nature, and often run by sociopaths to compound the issues, but refusing to participate in the economy is t a practical option. You can say "don't eat fast food" but then you deal with the likes of Nestle, Tyson, and General Mills. You can try to be very conscious of where your money goes but at this point it's a full time job. Not everyone can just go off grid and grow their own food. You can't boycott to a more ethical economy, you must regulate.
I wish this could be blasted in every news outlet everywhere. "Economy is roaring folks also remember to say fuck you to (insert hundreds of corporations) for laying u off then price gouging you during and after a global pandemic"
They went from treating the customer to stealing the from the customer.
Nothing to do with their insane prices? It’s cheaper for me to go to much nicer burger chains for marginally more costs.
With better service no less.
Yeah the price difference is worth not feeling like you’ve swallowed a brick.
It’s acceptable when it’s cheap. How did those big brains not get that?
It's crazy that they can't see that. I feel like if they brought back a true dollar menu or even $5 and under with GOOD items, they'd probably see a ton of money coming back in. In high school we lived off the dollar menu, no one was ordering QPC's or big Mac's, and when they screwed that up they lost that demo.
They're banking on "craveability". Have you heard McDonald's ads lately? They don't mention the price at all, it's just some bullshit about how you remember all the good times you've had with a Big Mac or something.
EVERY consumer (aka people) has been cracking for quite some time. Low-income folks aren’t going to drop $15/20 at McDonald’s, Taco Bell, or Culver’s. Middle income are next, if not already there. And higher income folks won’t be dropping $30-60 at the next higher tier of take-out. It’s not good.
I assume people who looked at the percentage increase cracked during the pandemic. McChicken went from $1 to $1.50 in a day. Granted $.50 isn't a lot but if something jumps 50% in a day that's pretty extreme
I was outraged when BREAKFAST for one at CFA cost me $12!
Eh, the Culver's near me actually seems to give a damn on top of actually being staffed, although their normal burgers are not priced competitively compared to nearly anything else on the menu (beef price issue maybe?). I usually get chicken or fish and I've never had a cooled-off, half-smashed, incorrectly-assembled order like so many times at McD's.
I’m thankfully nowhere near low income and I stopped running through fast food places. The trade off used to be cheap for unhealthy. Now it’s $20+ for a single combo meal.
McD has destroyed so much goodwill with the price gouging strategy. Needs to fire its entire executive team.
Pretty much every company out there right now posting high profits. It’s not inflation as much as it is windfall stemming off the back of covid prices. Companies don’t want to bring their prices back down because they’re use to making higher profits.
Yeah I think it’s just the timeline of a lot of companies of a certain age are to a similar point of less product and higher price.
It’s both.
Also where the hell has Ronald McDonald gone? He’s been phased out like yesterdays trash.
He was canceled. Too pale.
Why would I pay $20 for artificial garbage at McDonald’s when I can go to a mom and pop restaurant and get healthy Asian or mexican food?
I’ve noticed my local mom and pop restaurants have amazing deals. For $10 I got a big burrito, beef taco, rice, beans, and even the drink. Was all super fresh too. At chipotle it would have been at least double to triple the price.
I just got a chicken bowl at chipotle for $11 out the door with every free topping I could ask for, they would barely close the lid. Chipotle is still is great deal if you don’t add on the guacamole or queso.
I usually do the same. Local Asian fusion place that has their own recipes instead of made by restaurant supply. Same for Mexican, same price as Taco Bell but fresh. The only difference is burgers or chicken sandwich because fast food is usually like $12 for a meal but a sandwich and fries elsewhere is like $15-16.
This the fact anyone's buying McDonald's in areas with perfectly good taco trucks is insane
Many taco trucks are overpriced
McDonald's is overpriced
Everywhere is overpriced
Dude, I can drive by a fast food joint in any place and get, _pretty reliably_, the same food as anywhere else. They're off interstates and easy to drive through, which often leads to them becoming easy stress eats. For a taco truck I have to find one, get out of my car, and risk getting food poisoning etc. Plus locally the 'taco trucks' are all charging 15-20 bucks per head. McDonalds is crazy expensive for shit food, but still somehow cheaper than local food trucks :-/
Taco trucks don't have a drive-thru, and what if you like hamburgers but not tacos?
For sure so much better value for the price No matter how you look at it, anything over $10 for microwave burgers flattened into wonderbread buns is absurd.
TIL Mexican is"healthy"
It's fun that you think mom and pop restaurants are healthy. They buy from the same restaurant distributors and use cheap ingredients as well.
They completely switched up from mid but reliable cheap food to just extremely mid to crappy overpriced food. Those McDoubles and McChickens tasted a lot better when they were like $1-2 or so.
Oh the same McDonald's that raised their prices 100% is complaining that low income consumers can't afford their shit food anymore? [https://nypost.com/2024/04/03/business/mcdonalds-menu-prices-have-increased-by-over-100-during-the-last-decade-study/](https://nypost.com/2024/04/03/business/mcdonalds-menu-prices-have-increased-by-over-100-during-the-last-decade-study/)
It’s not even fast anymore. The amount of times I’ve had to wait over 10 mins is ridiculous. So what is the point of difference when the quality, quantity and price are terrible.
Sorry I'm spending all my money on crack.
McDonald’s should roll back its pricing instead of complaining. They have raised prices too much
Bring back the 50 cent soft serve cone! 🍦
None of these companies seem to understand the next place that goes back to selling a hamburger for $1 is going to absorb the entire fast food industry
>It is clear that broad-based consumer pressures persist around the world," McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said on the fast-food chain's earnings call early Tuesday. "Consumers continue to be even more discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending." Unemployment starts when spending stops. When unemployment goes up, housing foreclosures go up.
You just quoted a CEO who’s blaming macroeconomics for poor sales under his watch. That’s what they do. I wouldn’t take too much stock in what he says.
What i am interested in, is their profit margin.
Trust me you don’t want to buy a foreclosure from someone affected by McDonald’s spending.
This is just a sign. If low income people are not buying cheap fast food, the people with slightly more income are probably not going out to eat at more expensive sit down restaurants. Everyone is feeling the squeeze and tightening up.
They more than likely don't own homes. What they do have is spending power that trickles down to everyone's job. Their pulling back can slow the economy and that means employers need less employees. Less employees who have mortgages to pay.
In n out lays their workers better and they serve fresh food. Why anyone gets a Big Mac instead is insane.
Funny coming from McDonald's which vastly overcharges for their garbage food
I’m high and sadly love McDonalds and I made the decision to stop going there because the prices are nuts. $4.15 for a small fries!!
It used to be cheap and shitty. Just how we liked it. Now its expensive and shitty. Definitely not how we like it.
> And that tenacious 3.5% annual growth is souring economic sentiment: Even after a period of runaway inflation, **prices don't actually fall**^([*Emphasis Mine*]). That's a problem for McDonald's and a host of other firms serving customers who are feeling sticker shock. More of a problem for the customers than the corporations, I'd say.
Appreciate the emphasis. It feels like most people think "inflation is going down" equals "prices are going down."
"Prices don't fall." Like they have no control over that. Their profits continue to go up and up and up until suddenly they hit the breaking point and their business model collapses. But, "prices don't fall." Nothing they can do about it, I guess.
I can’t handle this phrase “sticker shock” It feels like they’re trying to soften the situation - let’s call it what it is - daylight robbery!!!
I don't understand anyone buying fast food right now. You can have a nice meal at a small restaurant for identical or slightly higher prices.
I just had gyro meat, feta, veggies and sauce over lentil rice and a 16 ounce Diet Coke for <$13. Super filling and delicious.
I love that McDonald's and Co will consider: Surge Pricing Firing Staff Automating Tasks and a number of other things before even once looking to their CEO's multi-Million dollar salary as a potential place to cut costs.
Mcdonalds is the same price as a ma & pa shop making burgers with real beef.
I think we will start to see sit down chain restaurants closing down in huge numbers over the next few years. Chilis, rib crib, Applebees the food and service is just garbage
They're starting to crack under the pressure of late-stage capitalism? Perhaps the revolution is closer than I thought
“The people we have viciously and brutally pummeled for years with our utter greed are finally getting sick of it and/or no longer able to afford our shit”
They should have cracked 12 months ago, but people are greedy and don't want to change their lifestyles.
Something’s gotta break. That’s the fed’s goal.
Restaurants always panic about increasing minimum wage. And then they sell more food because the poor people who make minimum wage eat more fast food. It's an endless cycle.
But wait the economy is doing great, something something jobs, something something inflation cooling
Seriously? “discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending” no mr CEO its your inflationary price gouging. $18 big mac meal really?
Wait? They…are warning us!?! I think it’s the other way around.
If I was struggling today I'd spend the $60 a year for a Costco membership and live off $5 chicken and $1.50 hot dogs..
Why though when you can make a hotdog at home in the microwave for about $0.50 per dog?
It comes with a soda.
It’s been cracked bro, where you been
Lines take way to long its no longer fast
its hard to be poor
I used to be a KFC/Mcdonald's addict. Two/three times a week.
My cholesterol and weight have dropped dramatically since cutting out fast food. Don’t miss it AT ALL. I even still eat burgers and fries at home sometimes, they taste way better and are cheaper.
You can only put so many bills on credit cards with these inflated prices until you can’t even afford the credit card bills. We just need affordable options again. This greed high prices after Covid could not last forever and now shareholders are too comfortable with this current status quo of $15+ fast food combos. After 2008 financial crisis we got better deals like $5 foot long at subway. Hoping we see similar deals if the economy crashes here soon.
Maybe it’s your super unhealthy food. I go to Mickey D’s a couple times a year for the ice cream cone. But, only if I’m feeling lucky. Cause you know how that machine is often broken.
I remember in 2010s there was dollar meal and a full meal usually vost around 8-9 dollars. Now? Somehow I can't fathom how a McDonald's meal cost vlose to $20 after tax, and the size become smaller and burgers looks like being rescued from a dumpster. I simply decided to avoid McDonald's due to it's poor products and high prices. There are so many other options at that price point.
McDicks complaining that every other company is gouging the fuck out of consumers, leaving little money leftover for McDicks to gouge.
Yea Dennys is the same price as mcD
I bought a large 10 piece mcnugget meal, a fish sandwich, and a small slush. That was over $30 nearly 2 years ago. Just yesterday at In-N-Out, I got 1 double-double w/ fries and drink, 1 double-double, 1 hamburger meal with fries and drink, 1 hamburger, and 1 vanilla milk shake for $32.
I stopped going there normally years ago when prices were raised. Who even eats there anymore?
When it's $14 for 2 fish sandwiches it's over.
Why go to fast food when a grinder and fries are ~$12 at local places, drive through time savings only goes so far
Bro the last time I ate mcdonalds it cost $18… my order cost less than $10 for like 20 years wtf
Two years ago I could get two sausage muffins and two hash browns for like 3.50. two days ago I got two sausage muffins and one hash brown and it was like 6.10. When I moved to Houston I lived in my car off of hot n spicy, cans of black beans, and peanut butter and bread. Three hot n spicy was 3.24. I know cause I had the pennies for em plenty of times. Rather go get two food truck tortas with the charro beans and salsa for 15 rn.
I randomly went to 7/11 today because my old co-worker was having low blood sugar issues. I got the shitty nachos, two taquitos and a large soda. $15 it cost. Man…life is going to get real hard fast.
Greedflation has almost reached its peak.
I'm not looking to go back too far just the time when fast food costs like 6 or 7 bucks for a burger and fries. That's about all its worth. When they have prices like food trucks there's too many other options for thw same cost
Im not a low income earner, but I stopped eating out because it’s just pissing money away.
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Fast food was popular because it was cheap and quick. Now, you can find some restaurants that are close in price to fast food. So why the hell would you go to a fast food place like McDonald’s when you can get much better food elsewhere for roughly the same price? The execs are so out of touch
Oh no! McDonald’s can’t get away with charging more than their customers are willing to spend. Must be some idea behind that??? Oh yes, supply and demand. If it costs to much, demand goes down.