Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 611 posts

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#81

Post by walthamstow »

detritus wrote: post #42
FerretFred wrote: post #21

I can only speak for the UK but for quite a while now, McD's has become an uninviting experience, with miserable staff, menu screens that visibly tell you to hurry the f*k up and choose the product. Not to mention customers vying with delivery drivers for orders. I think the problem applies to all-income customers.

Also, £4.20 for a Double Bacon & Egg McMuffin is just ... no. Why? I could swear it wasn't that long ago it was under £3. For a fiver I can get a better 'real' Bacon & Egg bap from an independent.

I paid £5.09 for a sausage and egg mcmuffin meal with coffee and a hash brown this morning. I think that's pretty reasonable, especially for London.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#82

Post by pseudalopex »

shoddydoordesk wrote: post #32

[flagged]

> First they complained that restaurants like McD's were poisoning the lower classes with fast food, now they're complaining that they can't afford it?

Are they the same people?

Is it possible there are 2 problems?

Who complained? Reporting is not complaint.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#83

Post by QuercusMax »

pluralmonad wrote: post #27
notepad0x90 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should consume a lot less beef. Wages haven't caught up with inflation in a long while, I'd hope McDonalds paying more would trigger a nationwide increase in wages (I know, too optimistic).

Agreed. Sheep are a much more sustainable ruminant and we should all shift that way. I always heard it was spoiled cans of mutton fed to GIs that killed Americas taste for sheep. More importantly, we should stop eating food shipped in from far away. Not as easy as it sounds.

I bought some canned corned mutton (from Australia, I think) recently on a whim when I was at a caribbean foods store, and it was incredibly delicious. Not much in the way of gamy flavor (which I don't hate), and more tasty than corned beef. I think this is the recipe I used: https://www.alicaspepperpot.com/guyanese-style-corned-mutton...

That stuff wasn't cheap but I'm gonna make two cans worth next time, since my guests absolutely devoured it.

I live in Oregon where I know we have tons of sheep (you can see them when you're driving on I-5); would be great to get stuff like this with local sheep!

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#84

Post by kakacik »

Where I live (Switzerland), cost of going to some proper burger joint vs mcdonalds costs roughly the same, or its very mildly cheaper for mcd. Plus unlike say France they don't serve beer here(canned heineken but at least its still technically beer).

The only reason to go there is their method of handling tons of customers (restaurant experience this ain't thats for sure), their opening hours and often location.

That's it, if you look for quality or pleasantness of experience or actual good food in statement above you don't have to bother. Worst burgers Swiss market can offer, we have different food and tasting standards here.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#85

Post by zaphar »

zepolen wrote: post #46
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take 100% of their salaries and profits and it would make a negligible, likely unnoticeable difference in this issue.

Amazon made $311B in 2024, they employ 1.5 million people. That's $200k an employee, on top of what their regular salary is. McDonalds made $15B and employ 150k people, that's $100k per employee. So no, not negligible in the slightest.

Where did you get the $311B number? Because I get a net profit of $59.25B which is only 40k per employee. This assumes that the company doesn't need to keep any profit for future usage which may or may not be case depending on how big their war chest is. Not to say that 40k couldn't be life changing for many of the Amazon employee but the 311B number seems to be pulled out of thin air.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#86

Post by shkkmo »

dyauspitr wrote: post #37
jswelker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally... No they are not. My middle school daughter says many of her friends just eat ramen packets every night.

So even crappier food. The people have to be blamed for this at some point. Lower income Indian and East Asian families cook fresh food every night that probably costs less than $0.50 a plate. Beans, lentils, rice, eggs, pork and chicken can take you very far.

Let me introduce you the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

Instead of blaming people, perhaps it is better to look at the systemic factors that we can change to help people who are already playing life on hard mode.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#87

Post by esafak »

throwway120385 wrote: post #74
dyauspitr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So even crappier food. The people have to be blamed for this at some point. Lower income Indian and East Asian families cook fresh food every night that probably costs less than $0.50 a plate. Beans, lentils, rice, eggs, pork and chicken can take you very far.

Anecdotally, a pressure-cooked pot of beans can take over 40 minutes to knock together. So it is not that simple.

Only if you lack the planning skills to soak them in the morning or the night before. Besides, hydrated canned beans are perfectly affordable.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#89

Post by bryanlarsen »

shkkmo wrote: post #67
roywiggins wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's true about wage growth, especially at the low end: https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/ > In stark contrast to prior decades, low-wage workers experienced dramatically fast real [inflation-adjusted] wage growth between 2019 and 2023

Your source lists wage growth during that period as 13.2% Meanwhile inflation over that period is significantly higher at 19.18%. So, no, low end wage growth has not kept up with inflation.

That says "real wage growth" of 13.2%. IOW 13.2% on top of the 19.18% for nominal wage growth of >33%.

Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

#90

Post by pseudalopex »

twoodfin wrote: post #4

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.

> 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.

The article cited analysis which said California's $20 minimum wage increased fast food prices 2% approximately.

Post reply on HN