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How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

pluralistic.net

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Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#41

Post by tru3_power »

gdulli wrote: post #6
garciasn wrote: post #2

Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it. We recently have begun to pay >$50 for a family of four. For context: the two cheeseburger meal is now just under $11. Subway is the same thing, with most sandwiches topping $10/ea and totals coming out around $50 for four of us. What is interesting, however, is that we're not witnessing this wit…

I've also noticed that the economics of fast food make no sense anymore compared to groceries and casual restaurants. Inflation has hit everything, but fast food has not retained the relative discount. A footlong basic chicken sub at a Subway near me is $13. A "Supreme Meats" is over $18. A "Beast" (whatever that is) is $21! All without a side or drink. Taco Bell and Wendys are similarly out of my guilty pleasure rot…

That is insane. Publix subs (a Florida thing) are around $12 and the quality difference is not even comparable. How do these fast food places stay in business?

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#42

Post by armchairhacker »

tschwimmer wrote: post #10
gdulli wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also noticed that the economics of fast food make no sense anymore compared to groceries and casual restaurants. Inflation has hit everything, but fast food has not retained the relative discount. A footlong basic chicken sub at a Subway near me is $13. A "Supreme Meats" is over $18. A "Beast" (whatever that is) is $21! All without a side or drink. Taco Bell and Wendys are similarly out of my guilty pleasure rot…

What I've noticed is there there is a huge "app subsidy" (drive through tax?) for many fast food chains. For example, Taco Bell has a $6 online-only combo that's probably 40-60% discount over the drive-thru menu equivalent. I've noticed similar things with other chains as well. As a business strategy, this makes some minor amount of sense since the app orders are transparently more efficient than drive through orders…

Everyone's saying "they want you to use the app", but maybe it's also to overcharge people who just don't care or realize that they're wasting money. Older people who don't use their phone and just keep going to the same places out of routine, get the higher prices; while younger people and those who actually pay attention, instead of not eating there at all, get the lower prices.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#43

Post by rayiner »

lancesells wrote: post #28
garciasn wrote: post #2

Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it. We recently have begun to pay >$50 for a family of four. For context: the two cheeseburger meal is now just under $11. Subway is the same thing, with most sandwiches topping $10/ea and totals coming out around $50 for four of us. What is interesting, however, is that we're not witnessing this wit…

> Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022. $1.6B in 2021. Starbucks had $3.3B in profit in 2022. $3.6B in 2021. Subway announced they had beaten sales plans by $1.4B in 2021. It's not the wages that are the issue making the prices go up. These companies aren't hurting for profit.

Your assertion makes no sense without comparing the profit to the scope of the enterprise. Put another way, for a $4.25 grande latte, Starbucks generates about $0.43 in profit.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#44

Post by rtpg »

garciasn wrote: post #2

Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it. We recently have begun to pay >$50 for a family of four. For context: the two cheeseburger meal is now just under $11. Subway is the same thing, with most sandwiches topping $10/ea and totals coming out around $50 for four of us. What is interesting, however, is that we're not witnessing this wit…

I don't think the wage increases are the biggest input to the increase in sandwhich pricing. Some random Quora answer says that you might see 50-120 orders served at peak per McDonalds employee. Increasing the price by... what, 50 cents? Is already looking at an extra $25-$60.

Peak hours of course, but given that the McDonalds business model is mostly "sell drinks at pure profit, sell food at cost", price changes at best are just linked to raw materials costing more, and other expenses. Cynicailly: most of that price increase is not landing in workers pockets.

Some other random website states that wages are 20% of a McDonald's franchisee's costs. So I bet a part of the cost is for wages, but most of it is probably about everything else.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#45

Post by toomuchtodo »

fallingfrog wrote: post #37

The Drew Barrymore thing is as pretty amazing to me. 20 years ago nobody would have supported the striking writers- they would have complained and called them lazy. Now there was such an outcry that Drew had to back down. It’s a sea change for sure. I’m pretty sure the era of solipsistic politics is coming to a close, at last.

Bill Maher as well.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#46

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

gdulli wrote: post #12
tschwimmer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've noticed is there there is a huge "app subsidy" (drive through tax?) for many fast food chains. For example, Taco Bell has a $6 online-only combo that's probably 40-60% discount over the drive-thru menu equivalent. I've noticed similar things with other chains as well. As a business strategy, this makes some minor amount of sense since the app orders are transparently more efficient than drive through orders…

I will absolutely not install an app to order food. But if it means Taco Bell is no longer part of my diet I'll take it as a win.

I can generally order anything I want, pickup or delivery, through GrubHub. Of course they track me; I pay them and they find me at home for delivery.

But I can also sit on a bus and order from the restaurant that's at my next stop, 20 minutes away. Google Maps has become great for this, actually. You find a restaurant and you hit the "Order" button, and there's a menu of choices for who to order from. You could GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, or you could order from the restaurant's website.

Restaurant websites have variable quality, mostly very poor, unless they're a franchise, or signed up with an aggregator, but hey, it's not an app.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#47

Post by MR4D »

lancesells wrote: post #28
garciasn wrote: post #2

Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it. We recently have begun to pay >$50 for a family of four. For context: the two cheeseburger meal is now just under $11. Subway is the same thing, with most sandwiches topping $10/ea and totals coming out around $50 for four of us. What is interesting, however, is that we're not witnessing this wit…

> Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022. $1.6B in 2021. Starbucks had $3.3B in profit in 2022. $3.6B in 2021. Subway announced they had beaten sales plans by $1.4B in 2021. It's not the wages that are the issue making the prices go up. These companies aren't hurting for profit.

There are approximately 40K McDonald’s in the world. That’s about USD 50,000 in profit per location.

If you think that’s egregious, then we aren’t going to agree on much.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#48

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

MR4D wrote: post #47
lancesells wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it McDonalds had $1.9B in profit in 2022. $1.6B in 2021. Starbucks had $3.3B in profit in 2022. $3.6B in 2021. Subway announced they had beaten sales plans by $1.4B in 2021. It's not the wages that are the issue making the prices go up. These companies aren't hurting for profit.

There are approximately 40K McDonald’s in the world. That’s about USD 50,000 in profit per location. If you think that’s egregious, then we aren’t going to agree on much.

Note that given the franchise model, that's 50k profit on basically no expenses (i.e. you aren't looking at the profit of the stores, that's the amount of money being taken out of each store by McDonalds in addition to the profit that the owners are making). McDonalds isn't paying for the employees or the food or the buildings. That's just the tax they are charging the franchises for the privilege of calling themselves a McDonalds store.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#49

Post by jimmaswell »

garciasn wrote: post #2

Most of the McDs around me are already paying $17-20 (in Minnesota, including rural areas) and the menu prices reflect it. We recently have begun to pay >$50 for a family of four. For context: the two cheeseburger meal is now just under $11. Subway is the same thing, with most sandwiches topping $10/ea and totals coming out around $50 for four of us. What is interesting, however, is that we're not witnessing this wit…

$11 seems fine to me for a two cheeseburger meal today.

Re: How unions won a 30% raise for every fast food worker in California

#50

Post by nullc »

tschwimmer wrote: post #10
gdulli wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also noticed that the economics of fast food make no sense anymore compared to groceries and casual restaurants. Inflation has hit everything, but fast food has not retained the relative discount. A footlong basic chicken sub at a Subway near me is $13. A "Supreme Meats" is over $18. A "Beast" (whatever that is) is $21! All without a side or drink. Taco Bell and Wendys are similarly out of my guilty pleasure rot…

What I've noticed is there there is a huge "app subsidy" (drive through tax?) for many fast food chains. For example, Taco Bell has a $6 online-only combo that's probably 40-60% discount over the drive-thru menu equivalent. I've noticed similar things with other chains as well. As a business strategy, this makes some minor amount of sense since the app orders are transparently more efficient than drive through orders…

Presumably the stolen data and monitoring make up the difference.
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