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McDonald's is losing its low-income customers

latimes.com

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

#341

Post by Libidinalecon »

f1shy wrote: post #48
notepad0x90 wrote: post #6

Perhaps this is a good thing? Are people eating healthier home-made foods now?

I do not think this is exactly true. People may stop eating junk outside. But having a healthy balanced diet is more expensive than buying junk and eating at home; and not only in money, but more importantly (maybe) in time. Cooking takes time and effort, which families with both working parents may struggle with. Please do not forget often those people have more exhausting and abusive jobs. I know from first hand, h…

The idea you can't eat a healthy and cheap diet is just absurd.

This is exactly how I eat. Lean chicken breast is some of the cheapest protein. Eggs have come back down to be a good deal.

Oatmeal, sweet potatoes and rice are cheap. Olive oil is cheap.

Walmart has frozen kale in a bag for $1.50.

People don't eat healthy because they don't want to eat healthy. It doesn't taste as good and is not as much fun.

My weekly grocery bill is not that much more than cost of eating one meal from door dash.

In term of taste, of course it sucks compared to door dash. For me, that is a feature and not a bug or else I would over eat and it wouldn't be a healthy diet.

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

#342

Post by rufus_foreman »

xeonmc wrote: post #40
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.

Can you afford McDonald’s food if you work at McDonald’s?

When I worked in fast food, they gave you a meal allowance, but it didn't really matter because I would grab a hamburger patty right off the grill and chow down. God damn, now I'm getting hungry.

Supposedly you would get fired for doing it, but when the managers accused me of doing it I would just deny it with my mouth closed while still chewing, and the managers would do it too.

They probably have cameras now or something. Those were the days.

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

#343

Post by owenversteeg »

johnisgood wrote: post #331
andyjensen wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are having a too black and white opinion on the issue. As a founder it is actually cheaper for me to spend 1000$ on restaurant and take-out food per week than wasting time cooking for myself. Plus you support local businesses by eating out

It is cheaper to spend 1000$ on a restaurant than to take an hour or two to cook a very low-effort food that takes max 2 hours to cook and lasts for 3 days? I'm genuinely baffled. Personally I would not call it a waste of 2 hours. Either way, if you can afford it, then Godspeed. :D I definitely do not have 1000 USD per week for food. I do not even have 100 USD per week for food.

I personally don’t get takeout or eat at restaurants but there are certainly many cases in the US where it would be (far) cheaper. You say 2 hours for 3 days (so 40 mins/day or about 5h/week) which I think is on the low side. If you spend an average of 90 minutes a day on everything related to food (grocery shopping, recipes, cooking, cleanup, dishes) that’s 10.5 hr/week. In any case, that’s between 5-10h/week or $75-150/week at $15/hr, enough to pay the extra over groceries for cheap fast food. At $100/hr you could easily buy nicer food with the time savings, much like the GP comment.

But of course the math is different for everyone. Some people love to cook and some hate it. Some people like things that are fairly hard to cook (Korean, Japanese, Indian.) Some people need a different dinner each night and some are happy eating a giant pot of one bulk-cooked thing across days or weeks. Personally, I occasionally cook elaborate dinners, but for weeknights I find that a rice cooker plus frozen vegetables is a nice middle ground. Variety, hot fresh food, nutritious, and also very little time required. That, and eating with friends and family and trading off cooking.

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

#344

Post by Libidinalecon »

ta12653421 wrote: post #181
ta12653421 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thas fucking cheap! LOL Chicken well raised and fed, is usually good starting at around 30-40 EUR / kg. I supermarkets selling 1kg of chicken for 4-5 EUR / kg - I would not touch this.

The one who downvoted me obviously has a problem with high quality food. Animals held and then sold for 4-5 EUR per kg is pure shit. Period. I would rather eat groceries instead. Most people have no idea what high quality meet is because they buy their stuff always at large chains - remember: None of the sustainability-interested local farms sells to any of those supermarkt chains. You have to GO there to get your st…

This is total nonsense.

There is the thermodynamics of calories in and out. Then there are micro nutrients.

Everything beyond that is bullshit marketed to suckers.

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

#345

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Libidinalecon wrote: post #341
f1shy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think this is exactly true. People may stop eating junk outside. But having a healthy balanced diet is more expensive than buying junk and eating at home; and not only in money, but more importantly (maybe) in time. Cooking takes time and effort, which families with both working parents may struggle with. Please do not forget often those people have more exhausting and abusive jobs. I know from first hand, h…

The idea you can't eat a healthy and cheap diet is just absurd. This is exactly how I eat. Lean chicken breast is some of the cheapest protein. Eggs have come back down to be a good deal. Oatmeal, sweet potatoes and rice are cheap. Olive oil is cheap. Walmart has frozen kale in a bag for $1.50. People don't eat healthy because they don't want to eat healthy. It doesn't taste as good and is not as much fun. My weekly…

Cheap isn’t just money to buy ingredients, but also the time to prepare them. If you are working two 8 hour shifts a day, your time and energy for cooking a real dinner might be limited.

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

#346

Post by rini17 »

somenameforme wrote: post #107
f1shy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think this is exactly true. People may stop eating junk outside. But having a healthy balanced diet is more expensive than buying junk and eating at home; and not only in money, but more importantly (maybe) in time. Cooking takes time and effort, which families with both working parents may struggle with. Please do not forget often those people have more exhausting and abusive jobs. I know from first hand, h…

The problem is that people don't know how to cook. Something like pressure cookers (or crock pots where appropriate) are amazing for this sort of scenario. There are endless recipes you can find online that are toss a few ingredients in, wait, eat. Easy clean up, and delicious. I increasingly think cooking should be a part of basic education for everybody. Stuff like rice, beans, and chicken breast are extremely chea…

I'm afraid home cooking is the first victim of "big tech" strip mining our attention. When you are hooked it's too difficult to plainly keep concentrated on the cooking/cleaning process and on procuring of individual ingredients. No matter how easy it is, still needs capability to deal with messy physical stuff. And it's too easy to get demotivated by mediocre result.

An harbinger of things to come, widespread crippling executive dysfunction.

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

#347

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #220
delichon wrote: post #209

> Her brother, who works as a cashier, can’t afford meals out at all, she said. The cost of his diabetes medication has increased greatly, to about $200 a month, which she helps him cover. This is an often unacknowledged part of the cost of fast food. It turns susceptible people into diabetics. As a diabetic there is little I can eat there, since I manage it with food not drugs. When I do I get a burger and throw out…

It is unusual to see young people make the choices to not turn into patients. It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things.

> It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things

This is like every new fast casual business in Manhattan in the last decade.

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

#348

Post by lotsofpulp »

xg15 wrote: post #291
lotsofpulp wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unusual to see young people make the choices to not turn into patients. It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things.

Where is the next cheap lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables fast food restaurant? I think it's a weird concept of a society where all the parts of it with money are directing people to do one thing - but at the same time, the people are expected to do the exact opposite and it's their own fault if they follow the coercion...

> Where is the next cheap lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables fast food restaurant?

Nowhere, because people prefer to pay for excess sat fats, sugar, carbs, and salt.

> I think it's a weird concept of a society where all the parts of it with money are directing people to do one thing - but at the same time, the people are expected to do the exact opposite and it's their own fault if they follow the coercion...

Every single health resource in society says not to eat excess sat fats, sugar, carbs, and salt. And avoid alcohol and tobacco. And gambling.

But people like short term benefits, even if they know there are long term consequences. And society is composed of people. Maybe GLP-1 pills can fix this error in the psyche.

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

#349

Post by sc68cal »

soared wrote: post #277
mmooss wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is awkward about it?

It’s weird two have those to things in the same category. Beef is.. not at all similar to salaries. The only overlap is that they are costs.

They are inputs into a business. I agree that it's bloodless but it's very typical of business language

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

#350

Post by GOD_Over_Djinn »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #235
GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world. They will never even know what was taken from them. I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.

I don't understand why people still blame the lockdowns. When the lockdowns started, it was unknown how dangerous Covid actually was. It could have killed 20%, or reduced lifespan by 30%, or something. Nobody knew. It takes 20/20 hindsight to blame lockdowns for what was a generational catastrophe. It's like blaming shelter in place requirements instead of the bombing of the reich.

Some, including myself, were against lockdowns from day 1, and were viciously attacked for it.
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