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Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is quite the juggling act: you have employees demanding to be paid more, the cost of goods/inflation steadily rising, while customers wanting everything to be cheaper. Something has to give somewhere, the challenging part would be to know where.
How about executive compensation?
> “Happy Meals at McDonald’s are prohibitively expensive for some people, because there’s been so much inflation,” Josephson said. I find the phrasing odd. It is because corporations have raised prices that inflation has increased. Rising prices aren't a result of inflation.
No, inflation is a monetary and political phenomenon. Companies cannot set prices arbitrarily, in particular not the fast food industry which faces what is probably the strongest competition on the planet. The entire restaurant industry does not collude on the prices of burgers. In this particular case it's wage-push inflation. The lowest quintile of workers has seen very strong wage gains among other reasons because…
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mcdonald-q3-2025-profit-sales...
In 2005 McDonald's net profit margin was ~12%, today it's ~30+%. Obviously that doesn't account for the entire price increase and wouldn't make that much of a difference...but worth noting.
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the bigger issue is the 500 mil/quarter stock buybacks and the several million compensation packages for the executives than the burger flipper wanting enough money to make it worthwhile to leave their house.
McDonald’s is a franchise. Franchise owners bear the burden of employee and goods costs.
Perhaps this is a good thing? Are people eating healthier home-made foods now?
Anecdotally... No they are not. My middle school daughter says many of her friends just eat ramen packets every night.
The likes of McDonald's will need to understand who their new customer base is quite carefully and market around that if they are to stay relevant. Sadly their products to me are garbage now; slow service, cold fries, awful oil. Obviously they've had to adapt but it's just expensive slop.
And in the UK they have had scandals around sexual harassment, which hasn't helped their image/branding.
I’m trying to be illustrative through glibness here, but… If consumers can’t afford the prices required to pay a restaurant’s labor living wages, then perhaps they’re not viable customers of that restaurant. Minimum wages above the market-set rate are a form of price control. The distorting effects of price controls—in this case, contributing to shortages of low-margin restaurant meals—are economically inevitable.
I think the bigger issue is the 500 mil/quarter stock buybacks and the several million compensation packages for the executives than the burger flipper wanting enough money to make it worthwhile to leave their house.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6920afb3-5f84-8008-827d-907e5f0a0a...
I’m trying to be illustrative through glibness here, but… If consumers can’t afford the prices required to pay a restaurant’s labor living wages, then perhaps they’re not viable customers of that restaurant. Minimum wages above the market-set rate are a form of price control. The distorting effects of price controls—in this case, contributing to shortages of low-margin restaurant meals—are economically inevitable.