Perhaps this is a good thing? Are people eating healthier home-made foods now?
And when people are homeless due to ballooning rents, think of how much weight they'll lose!
McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
551–560 of 611 posts
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#552I’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.
Yeah, if you make below a certain amount of money every year, you're a net drain on society and we should politely march you into a wood chipper.
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget company leaderships and stock owners taking more and more profit out of companies than ever.
Take 100% of their salaries and profits and it would make a negligible, likely unnoticeable difference in this issue.
Sounds like a great start!
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#554Earlier 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.
Markets are the best mechanism ever invented to resolve that challenge to maximum aggregate benefit.
Can't wait for the glorious day when Big Macs are $100 because the Market has willed it. Verily, I say unto thee, for mine eyes have beheld the Market's glory, thou art blessed to pay $100 for a Big Mac, and thou ought to bend thy knee and worship at the feet of the Market, for it is all-knowing, and all-powerful, and perfect. Selah.
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would make everything maybe 1 cent cheaper, so it's not really significant.
Yea whenever the idea of a company's profit is under a microscope, people often reflex to exec "greed" but it's typically because it's easier to blame a fictional disney villain, than it is to dig into the root of the problem.
If you can explain why anyone needs $8.469 billion of profit (2023), I'll gladly hear you out about greed. But something tells me I'm not going to get a great answer. :)
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#556In 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.
I'm not sure where this number comes from but McDonald's profit margins may be misleading due to their franchise and real estate based model. If you spend $10 at McDonald's that's paid to the franchise and the central McDonald's corporation isn't necessarily profiting $3.
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#557Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, that's a "no" since that meal costs less that it would if bough over the counter?
I’m just going to sidestep this and point out the stupidity of this comparison. Does it magically prove I’m making a bad salary if I can’t afford my employer’s product? Is a five star general making a bad salary because he can’t afford a nuclear submarine?
>Does it magically prove I’m making a bad salary if I can’t afford my employer’s product?
Yes, if the entire premise of your employer is "here's the cheapest hot food imaginable".
>Is a five star general making a bad salary because he can’t afford a nuclear submarine?
No, because the entire premise of the military is not "here's the cheapest nuclear submarine imaginable".
What a ridiculous strawman you set up, although you swung pretty earnestly at it, Mr. Quixote.
A better example would be Walmart, whose entire premise is "we sell the cheapest goods imaginable". Despite this, a lot of Walmart (and McaDonald's employees, actually) are on government assistance. If you have a justification for why there should ever be a society where someone working at a job that boasts "we have the cheapest shit" still can't afford their job's cheap shit, then please, be my guest.
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you used the app? You may need to use the app to get the McValue and similar lower-priced menu items. It's a brilliant price discrimination strategy.
I don't even have a smartphone. Why should I put up with these insane prices even with a discount by tracking, when I can buy the same thing for <1€ at the grocery store that is literally in the same building 10meters away.
Using the app a small soda at McDonald's is ~$1 ($1.14 near me, but that may include the SF soda tax). Less than $2 for a large for those beckoning diabetes.
But soda is definitely cheaper elsewhere, and drinks, even soda, are usually a profit center for almost any restaurant, but a loss leader at grocery stores. I remember in the mid 1990s when Coca-Cola and then Pepsi were trying to stem the tide of a decline in sales. They drastically lowered prices through certain channels, particularly grocery stores and, most memorably, vending machines outside grocery stores, where the price dropped from $0.50-$0.75 to $0.25 for a 12oz can. Almost overnight poor and working class people switched from cheaper alternatives like Kool-Aid (which was healthier--much less sugar!) to Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
I agree the app is exceptionally inconvenient, unless someone else in the car is ordering, as well as privacy intrusive. But my point is merely that McDonald's is trying to cater to price-sensitive consumers without taking a hit to their revenue, and doing so more effectively than any other fast food chain.
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cooking takes time and effort, which many people lack. You need to make an initial investment in utensils and appliances, which poor people can't always afford. And if you don't already know how to cook, learning it on your own can be risky. If you make a mistake, you may end up losing the food, which poor people again may not be able to afford. And learning it takes time and effort anyway. In many cultures, men trad…
I've been hooked on fast food before, and I still grab some on occasion, but I don't understand these common excuses for why people HAVE to consume fast food. It's far cheaper to 1) buy unprocessed foods at the grocery store, 2) spend $20 a few times for cookware that will last plenty long enough, and 3) cook for 20min a day or do more preparation on the weekend. It doesn't require becoming a professional chef or buy…
Moreover, changing one's habits to cooking requires effort upfront, and its benefits may not be apparent (at least in the start).
Re: McDonald's is losing its low-income customers
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. The analogies to playing a musical instrument or speaking a foreign language are pretty silly. Cooking (provided you have access to some simple cookware) is literally printing out the recipe and FOLLOWING THE DAMN INSTRUCTIONS . If that’s beyond someone’s abilities then I weep for the general state of mankind.
> Cooking (provided you have access to some simple cookware) is literally printing out the recipe and FOLLOWING THE DAMN INSTRUCTIONS. If that’s beyond someone’s abilities then I weep for the general state of mankind. I mean, if you don't understand how badly the US educational system is failing people then I don't know what you expect. There are a large amount and growing amount of people that are barely literate an…
While the US education system is plenty bad, I expect that a substantial number of people who can't/don't cook are not held back due to illiteracy. To be fair, this thread seems to be discussing recipes and dishes, but even "tossing some meat in a crockpot and some rice in a rice cooker" is an improvement from ordering fast food.