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

411–420 of 611 posts

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

#411

Post by epolanski »

duped wrote: post #393
epolanski wrote: post #358

I never understood how can eating at McDonald's be cheaper than cooking your own meals. I'm not from US, but checking US grocery shops, you can eat meals made of chicken breast, bread and vegetables well below 5$ per person, well below 20$ in total for a family of 4. Yet every time I see those discussions, fast food is always presented as a cheaper option?

I'm not sure where you're getting numbers but I can't buy just chicken breast for two people for less than $5 at my grocery store unless I buy in bulk. And I do not have the space to store it.

I literally see chicken breast at walmart at 2.57$/lb, that's well below 5$ per two servings.

Add some simple mashed potatoes and you're still below 5$ to feed two people in one meal.

You can also eat bens, rice, lentils, eggs, add some cheese. There's countless simple, cheap, non processed food around.

The reality is that it's "more convenient", or at least it was, because if you had to choose between spending 3$ for a complete meal you still had to cook, and some 5/6$ McDonald's processed tasty food, you'd go with #2.

But stating that it's cheaper because of "scale economy" is just false, it isn't and never was to eat out. Let alone the impact of eating such junk food.

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

#412

Post by shagie »

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.

The cost of time is something that's discounted ... and for some households, there isn't time (parents working two jobs type thing).

One of the calculations in there is the dinner for 4 section of xkcd 980 https://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-2003&y=-1465&z=6

While homemade rice and pinto beans is $9.26 ... when you add in the time for shopping, travel, prep, and cleanup it has an it has an effective cost of $41.80

If you take off the cost of going to groceries or that someone can spend the time to cook rather than work (or relax), then that $9.26 is the price you see.

Similarly, homemade chicken dinner is $13.78 ... or $46.32 with additional costs of living factored in.

McDonald's is $27.89 (in 2011... it's more now ... but then all the above numbers are too)... but the total cost is $36.03.

If you could get paid $16.27 rather than doing grocery shopping and the time spent cooking or cleaning then it is cheaper to eat at McDonald's than to have a home cooked meal.

For many people, cooking (and cleaning) is only economical if the time spent doing it can be completely discounted. If I have to spend 30 minutes in front of the stove not do other things, or 5-10 minutes cleaning up afterwards, that's time not doing other things that I'd enjoy. For families with kids, that sometimes means that young children are left unattended for an hour (not always viable). Getting fast food, on the other hand is has no cooking or time spent cleaning and furthermore has a good chance of having something that the kids want to eat.

"Just learn to cook" isn't always an option for every household.

Eating out for every meal isn't $1000 per week. If I went to the local diner, that would be about $200 / person / week. If I got pizza every day that would be down to about $100 / person / week.

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

#413

Post by dyauspitr »

nitwit005 wrote: post #232
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.

That same pattern of the poor eating instant noodles is true in Asia as well. The origin of a number of those products is US food aid. Governments in the 60s and 70s set up facilities to convert the wheat they were getting into a product people would eat.

Usually in college age kids, that situation quickly changes in married couples and families.

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

#414

Post by jalapenos »

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...

They don't exist because there isn't demand for them, hence no economies of scale, precisely to the point.

The point is absolutely right, people do just eat what tastes best, and this food just maximizes for that alone.

They do actually, for real, choose to become unhealthy.

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

#415

Post by jalapenos »

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.

As usual on HN I have to scroll to some grayed out text to hear the intelligent positions.

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

#416

Post by bsder »

GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #205
silisili wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least from my perspective, COVID broke everything. People are more awful, quality is more awful, and prices are way up. I dread even eating out anymore as I fully expect to overpay for bad food and service. There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.

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 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.

You're going to blame Covid and/or Covid response for the fact that monopolies can jack up prices without consequence? That's your conclusion? Seriously?

What's happened is that McDonald's assumed they were a monopoly supplier like everybody else and jacked prices. McDonald's unfortunately discovered that "not eating out at all" is a viable substitute to their monopoly. Whoops.

However, if you want to fix the enshittification that is going on, you need to aggressively break up the monopolies everywhere in order to insert slack back into the system to re-enable competition.

On top of that, basing everything around "Always Late(tm) Inventory" (aka "Just In Time Inventory") means that there is zero slack in the system so even IF you want to compete, there is no upstream provider that can supply you with enough material to make a meaningful difference.

Want to fix modern capitalism? Bust monopolies. Over and over. At all levels. In all fields (not just tech). Aggressively.

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

#417

Post by backscratches »

toast0 wrote: post #320
johnisgood wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are such restaurants around here in Europe but they are super expensive, so you are better off doing it on your own at home. Cooking a stew of lentils or any other legumes is very easy and does not consume that much time either, and you can cook for 3 days easily. Why are people not doing this?

Most people aren't interested in a stew that you have to cook for 3 days easily. Even BBQ people expect low and slow to finish on the same day it starts. :p

I think they meant once cooked you can eat it for 3 days worth of meals (in other words it is easy to cook a large quantity)

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

#418

Post by _heimdall »

_heimdall wrote: post #315
graemep wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat is more expensive though and GP was talking about a low cost healthy diet.

At least in my area, good quality meat isn't any more expensive than good quality produce. By "good meat" I mean at least pasture raised, and by "good produce" I mean at least organic.

I'd be curious for a silent down vote to actually comment here. Do you take issue with the prices of meat and produce in my area?

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

#419

Post by akhosravian »

cwillu wrote: post #304
ta12653421 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mahahahaaaaaa..... any restaurant that requires an App to access it, completely insane.

I had the mcdonalds app installed once, and then my phone pinged with a notification when I was driving near a mcdonalds. Never again.

Why would you allow notifications from most apps? What could the McDonald’s app possibly offer to warrant allowing it to dictate your attention for even a fraction of a second?

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

#420

Post by duxup »

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.

What is strange is McDonalds at one point was by far the most consistent fast food place in the US. Personally it wasn't my thing but it was always a step above all the other chains.

That hasn't been the case in a long time, quality control and customer service has fallen to be just as bad as any other place.

Post reply on HN