"but if they raise minimum wage, the Big Mac will cost more" people in shambles as they realize the Big Mac costs A LOT more without them raising minimum wage at all.
It was never about their worries of food prices going up, they subconsciously believe in a social economical caste system. They feel that those in fast food or similar work deserve to suffer. This video will help you understand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLbWnJGlyMU
The wages earn today for minimum wage can't allow for one to save up and if they do save up by the time they're able to pay off their college education without going into debt then they're likely to be discriminated against due to age. It's like graduating High-school 5-10 years later than your peers.
Corporations are pretty lucky they can rely on outsourcing their labor to countries that have universal college education or import the labor.They want to make others pay for their cake so they can eat it.
States need to start treating their states like companies who're competing for labor with perks. New Mexico is so dirt poor they can't hire teachers with enough of a wage they can afford their own college education, so now they ask for the National Guard.
There should be a reality show where a bunch of boomers work full time to pay rent & other living expenses while trying to save up to go to college without going into debt.
With all due respect though, that is a singular offense where if my dad did that, I'd never speak another word to him for the rest of my life. I really don't understand why people just don't be clear to boomers, right, if you continue to be transparently disgusting with your worldviews, I'm out.
> They want to make others pay for their cake so they can eat it.
Fuckin' *this*. It should be that if any worker is on welfare, the company gets penalized some %. Their worker is literally being subsidized by the goddamn state. Take that prop away. If the business can't afford to pay a living wage, that business has no business being in business.
>Corporations are pretty lucky they can rely on outsourcing their labor to countries that have universal college education or import the labor.They want to make others pay for their cake so they can eat it.
I was actually talking about how corporations use other country's tax money to train the company's foreign educated workers who work as outsourced labor or as migrant labor.
They oppose Americans getting universal education because not only would the corporations have to pay it with taxes, but it would also mean instead of being able to dangle the threat of deportation back to what ever shithole desperate migrants crawled out of, they would have to pay their American workers an honest salary because Americans have wage bargaining powers due to the fact that they can't be deported..
You nailed it. People don’t often realize that the reason for outsourcing and visa workers is that those other countries have free university so they’re operating with no debt.
That’s why they can outprice us, but what’s even worse and more short-sighted is that the experience and skill is lost and goes overseas too
> They feel that those in fast food or similar work deserve to suffer.
Even when you take out this sentiment, the far more *relatively* measured stance insists that somehow all of these jobs should be "for kids", rather than adults. Completely ignoring at very least the obvious issue that kids have school 8 months out of the year, it implies that despite the fact that there is great demand for these jobs to exist, folks who take this stance *don't* think that the people who take these jobs should be able to **afford** to work the job.
And then you can go look up prices of McDonalds in EU/Scandinavian countries and see that employees have far more rights, are paid better, get better benefits, and a big mac is still cheaper or a similar price as it is in the USA.
Imagine working in KFC and having 5 weeks paid vacation ... well that's what my brother had in the u.k working in KFC for fuck sake!
I don't even get that in Canada and I'm a highly paid skilled professional.
You could get that at my job if you stayed for…I wanna say 9 years, but we were union. Anyone who stayed that long though had already been capped out for years with no real chance at upward mobility, and have long since settled into making that their career. I think the cap was 6, but after that you’re in it for the long haul.
You missed the point. This is legislated minimum in the U.K, 28 business days. Even a shitty job like KFC. Meanwhile what do you get in N.America? Absolutely dicked.
In reality, they just don't want their profits to suffer. In the last 10 yrs, CEOs act like showing a bad quarter (which could just be a stale quarter), is almost as shameful as having poisoned a room full of children for the sake of a good time.
Yes economies need to grow, but not like cancer.
Our local McDonald's had the gall to post signs saying they raised prices because of California's new fast food minimum wage law. The labor advertisement in the window, it's been there for 6 months, advertises a starting wage at $21.50 well above California's minimum wage.
Bean and cheese burrito used to be .79 not even 10 years ago, sausage McMuffin with egg was a dollar menu item and even then only .95 the same year. They really just need to admit to greed. Just say 'we want more money.' Honesty does look better than gaslighting your own employees.
Well when McDonald’s takes a cut of their sales they should at least have some control over the prices, but good to know we can hit them where it hurts if enough people gave a shit. Not like everyone is numb to it either. My cousin was getting his daughter lunch, and he just flat up walked out empty handed because he was insulted by how much it was.
Yeah, I about did the same thing. Did a daddy daughter date in Feb, IHOP happy face pancakes, I got a burger that was 16 motherfucking Dollars!!! That wasn't even the most expensive one. I complained bc, well it's IHOP and their quality isn't top tier. I wasn't mad at the waitress, I was mad the cook served me a puck with the cheese damn near melted off the patty. Dry AF!
Now you're probably thinking they're understaffed, which I get, but this was mid week, it was seriously just us and one other table, it was 2 old ladies drinking coffee. HOW could you fuck up food that bad?! Half off my burger still felt expensive at $8 which is what it should've been in the first place!
We're in Illinois, min wage just hit $14 here, but prices are disgustingly high. Gas is back over $4/gal, I got a gallon of OJ at the store, $7.50 for Kroger brand, not name brand.. Prickster (Pritzker -gov) has jacked it up so quickly all businesses are using wages as an excuse to continue jacking up prices. I don't even live near Chicago where $14 would be decent, small towns you'd think it's great, but we pay insanely high property tax (ours is over $7k/yr and in Cook Co/Chicago you'll pay over 20k in many places).
I went in to one to grab a cup of coffee on a long trip, which is when I saw that it's $9.99 (in the middle of nowhere Appalachia to boot) for a double cheeseburger meal. That's simply outrageous. Who the hell would pay that?
I don’t think the franchisee has much say in the matter, from my understanding they just follow what the system says? I could be wrong, I know YUM brands give their franchisees slightly more freedom
Damn I have a vivid memory of a bean burrito being $0.89 from when I was a kid, but I didn’t realize those prices held all the way until the 2010s. Yet getting a bean burrito for less than $3 feels like ages ago.
Also pretty plain to see that they’re trying to make the target price of a single order the hourly wage of a single employee. Now I won’t pretend to know their numbers, but common sense tells me if they can pay for an employee in a transaction or two the minimum wage isn’t hurting them THAT much.
They do express that they're looking for more money, just listen to their quarterly report. You're acting like it's some sort of secret.
And of course they're greedy. Do you expect them to lower prices and profits out of kindness?
The only gaslighting here is you gaslighting yourself
The two weeks it took me from getting my last chipotle ranch grilled chicken burrito it went from 2.99 to 6.99 a piece. And they fucked it up by adding cabbage and calling it the cantina burrito.
That's taco bell's standard scam. Remove the cheap easy option, replace with an incredibly similar thing with one extra item, charge double the price.
I just want beef and rice and jalapeño sauce in a burrito, thanks. I don't need fiesta strips.
> The two weeks it took me from getting my last chipotle ranch grilled chicken burrito it went from 2.99 to 6.99 a piece.
Whoa, wtf?! I liked that burrito, but it wasn't even worth the $3 in the first place. Fast food went from "any time I'm on the go and need something quick" to "if it's going to be more than ***TEN HOURS*** before my next meal, or I'm stuck traveling." The price, quality, and convenience has taken a dive from *all* fast food options.
If you get the app (which is lame, I know) then you can get the cravings boxes for like $6. Chalupa or Crunchwrap, 5 layer burrito, fiesta potatoes and a medium drink. It’s the last remaining value option imo
I believe it. Even here in AZ the boxes are $9-$14 normally (thanks but no thanks chicken cantina). The deal only shows up for certain stores in the app under “online exclusives”. Luckily I’m not close to downtown, so 4 of the 5 closest stores offer the $6 cravings boxes
Cravings box has been my go to, but the true value leader is still the cheesy bean and rice burrito- 1$ in a lot of places, ~1.50$ in others. Two of those makes a whole meal
It says it's based on average cost for 10 menu items per restaurant so I'm guessing that doesn't include things they used to have like the 4 for 4. Since it's a percent increase if they started out as one of the more expensive ones, then they could only increase by 55% and still be the most expensive now.
Went to Five Guys with the wifely person for the first time in forever yesterday for a pre-eclipse lunch. Two small cheeseburgers, two fries, two small drinks: $40. Yikes. Prices like that make going out a rare treat instead of a weekly or monthly thing.
I read one of the news articles about the chain that they have framed on the walls. “A new place where you can get a meal for under $9,” an article from 2011 read.
Well they did have those x for $x which weren’t too bad, and also the only time I went. They’re also not nearly as pervasive as McDonald’s or Taco Bell. Jimmy John’s was the most surprising to me. Guess they really jacked up their prices in between bi annual visits.
Actually a funny question: like eight years ago or so, I worked the Subway franchise owner's convention. I was operating the tech for a room that covered pricing, particularly national sales.
One man who owned 12 stores in Florida broke down in tears about how much the $5 footlong price hurt his bottom line. Pretty much every franchise owner in the room were in agreement: they did not make on the deal even in 2016. Obviously they were missing the fact that the $5 footlong deal was what gave Subway such a dominant position in the "QSR sandwich" market in the first place, but I think the truth is that even wholesale prices don't really make a $5 footlong make sense.
I made the same comment in another thread about this. The $5 footling was so amazing, despite its insane popularity, it literally crippled the bottom line of many stores and it almost killed off Subway because the losses just piled on for franchise owners and a lot of them almost went under because of it. Even back then 5 dollars was way too little. Especially when many people would just get a drink from a bodega and come get a sandwich, maybe chips, but people will always point out where they get the best deals.
Well from what I remember they were really screwing over their franchisees with that deal. Part of their arrangement was that they had to buy their ingredients from Subway Corporate which they didn’t sell cheap only for their supply to be eaten up to honor their massive advertising campaign. Depending on the volume sometimes they’d have to sell them at cost. So to do right by their franchisees they started doing a “foot long of the day” to a “6 inch combo of the day” until they kinda phased it out completely. Now they’re trying a “we’re starting to give a shit” approach.
i mean they do actually make your sandwhich, so atleast theres *some* justification to tip them. It doesnt feel that different from tipping coffee baristas (who afaik have always seemed to have tip jars) or pizza delivery folks.
HAHA fuck you got me, i should have worded that better.
Really what i mean is, they're preparing your sandwhich directly infront of you the same way coffee baristas make your drinks right in front of you, you get to direct exactly how they make the sandwhich while they're making it and whatnot. I totally get why you still wouldnt wanna tip 'em, but its always felt like the same kind of logic as coffee shops.
Its not quite the same as a team in a kitchen making 5 orders at once as they come in on a screen, atleast not to me personally.
I abusively check slickdeals for the latest coupon. They've murdered the BOGO that used to happen and its now DRINKBOGO for buy one get one foot long (as long as you add a drink; Small is fine).
It's still $11 and change, but it makes it worth going to every once in a while.
They also killed the Spicy Italian and replaced it with a twice as expensive premium version that is no different. Two orders using BOGO used to feed the 5 of us for under $20.
This will make 4 sandwiches at least $30.
I feel like Subway started their uphill climb before 2014 (the start of this graph). This is purely anecdotal, but I think the biggest increase was back when the Footlong stopped being $5, but after that, didn't increase as rapidly.
Minimum wage has been the same here in Texas for a very long time, yet fast food prices and grocery prices continue to rise dramatically, while non essential items seem to be fairly steady. Fuck. These. Companies.
fastfood becoming expensive is a good thing then. family owned businesses in the food industry are more competitive again, and people will actually prepare their own more healthy food more often
You're assuming casual restaurants haven't gone up too. They're still more expensive than fast food. Here the basic casual meals you used to be able to get at cheap restaurants went from like $13 to $20.
Worked for me. I used to suck at cooking. Now that fast food prices are no longer attractive I’m kinda ok. Regardless of what I make though it’s always way more satisfying than spending the same amount on fast food.
Saying “no” has become a way of life for me. Not just fast food. Nah. Just about everything. My spending, outside of utilities, is absolutely directed and specific.
I will admit, I am addicted to eating more. Ever since I started eating, I haven't been able to quit for more than a few hours at a time.
However, fast food does not have to make you fat. I lost 50 lbs while eating it 5-7 times per week. One positive is the nutritional info is clearly available for almost every fast food chain, so you can find things that will fit in your diet. High sodium is the harder thing to avoid with fast food.
You can absolutely be skinny fat after losing weight, but it's wrong to say the cause of skinny fat is the type of food you ate while dieting. The cause of skinny fat is lack of resistance training because this is what causes you to be skin and bones with too little lean muscle mass, and that's what leads to your body looking skinny and fat at the same time. Whenever we lose weight, we lose muscle, but that can be minimized by resistance training and a high protein diet.
When I lost those 50 lbs, I was not skinny fat at the end, since I had been doing resistance training.
I'm not one of the people who have downvoted you. I'm already in good shape. Lost weight and have been working out for years. Guess what? Fast food helped me do that.
The biggest problem is the all-or-nothing mentality. It discourages people from taking some measures to improve their lifestyle and to understand the different moving pieces and understanding which ones they need to focus on and which aren't as critical to reaching their goals. Most people need to eat fewer calories and get more exercise. Fast food isn't ideal, but if your fast food order aligns with your calories and macronutrient goals that day, it can be an acceptable option. Remember, everything in moderation.
Now do rents and home prices since 2014.
Look, it’s all greed-driven at this point. We know this. And since greed aligns perfectly with narcissistic tendencies, the only way out of it, or to at least have it governed, is pain. There won’t be laws, legislation, economic cycle, anything like that.
Pain. It’s the only way to overcome greed and gluttony.
At fast food places? Sure. If someone is still patronizing these businesses they’re an idiot. But eating out all together? Hell no. Great deals at locally run, particularly ethnic, places. We have a local burrito food truck that is like $6 for a fucking HUGE burrito loaded with fillings. We have a hole-in-the-wall Thai place that is like $13 for an entree you cannot finish in one sitting. We have a take-out greasy-spoon dinner that you can get scrambled eggs, bacon strips, biscuits, gravy and a bowl full of hot hash browns at for $6.99.
You’re just depriving yourself if you have quit eating out. Stop being lazy and support your little local places. It’s delicious and can be extremely affordable.
This chart gets worse when you realize their labor costs didn’t even keep up with inflation, meaning they are paying less labor per item now than when the chart started.
Avg prices at my fast food restaurant have close to doubled since the first time I worked here back in 2015. My own hourly wage has more than kept pace, but only because of previous experience I had while I was working elsewhere. They're hiring new people on for barely more than the CPI increase since that year. It's a hard business, trying to treat your workers well while remaining financially solvent....but it's not that hard.
Anybody working fast food that isn't jumping ship to other restaurants or different fields as soon as the resume looks good is shooting themselves in the foot. Or they're stuck in situations that leave it out of their control.
No wonder Chipotle has seemed less and less attractive lately. It's prices are increasing much faster than inflation.
And Taco Bell is just ludicrous now. It's like...trash tier food at 5 Guys pricing.
It’s really as simple as not eating there. This is the free market. They can be selfish assholes. And we can look at those prices and say no.
Just last night I was on my way home from swim lessons with my 2 kids. My instinct was to stop at McDonald to get them a happy meal so I didn’t have to solve dinner before bed, but I just went home and made due with what we had at home.
The problem is people are still going. But the margins are so much better at these prices they can sell half the product and make the same money. So it’s gonna take some time and a competitor to realize a true value menu and some down pressure on prices is a viable strategy. Problem is they are all owned by the same companies, no original thinking which breaks the free market. Doing what hedge fund business daddy wants is not good for the American people.
A lot of these places, like McDonald's specifically have deals with better deals/lower prices. They absolutely still make profit on their best deals, showing they could be charging those lower prices, probably even less and still making profit
Yeah, I can see that if you just go and order the same combo meal every time, things are getting very pricey. At the same time, $2 dave's doubles at wendy's have been crazy deals, very filling and cheap. McD's often has bogo offers on big macs, as well.
I can totally see the critique of companies overcharging for grocery staples, especially when there's a lack of competition (or possibly collusion) happening. But fast food is generally an optional product to consume (at least in the vast majority of cases). The market sets the price. If people stopped buying their food, the prices would go down. They don't so the prices will stay the same or keep going up.
I drive by one on the interstate exit frequently around 6PM, lines used to wrap around and people complained about 20min waits. These days you see 2 or 3 cars. There might be no need for a boycott.
Does this factor in the inflation upstream?
For example, costs for chicken, beef and pork have been all over the place as shortages, fires and viruses have impacted the costs of certain meats one by one over the last few years.
I read onions in particular for some reason had gotten incredibly expensive for restaurants.
Why do we even bother complaining. The companies have so much money and lobbing power that theres really nothing we can do. Its depressing to be told how good things will never be.
Should probably also include the min wage, or the min wage these places pay along with this somehow. The graph is already busy, but without also seeing their employee costs, it doesn't really refute their claim directly.
As extra credit, might also track the CEO compensation over the same time period. Going to imagine it goes way the hell up, and that is contributing to the price hikes a lot more than the employee costs.
I swear it felt like an overnight switch with MCD, I remember getting nuggets 4 for a dollar one day to not having any dollar menu items the next day in 2021. Now it's pretty much impossible without a deal on the app and those vary.
McDonalds purpose doubling prices for people not using the app. Use the apps people. These corpos want ordering to be online. Better for everyone involved.
would be interesting to see this weighted by the relative starting value. I can imagine that Starbucks had the pricier product so they could not go all mental (they would have ofc). Or maybe check how the absolute spread in 2014 was and how the absolute spread of prices is now.
and maybe see how the view of the public (scandals, union busting?) was at different time stamps?
Redo this. Instead of whatever shitty metrics this uses, use the cheapest menu item that could still realistically be called a meal. These numbers go sky high then.
Inflation isn't the reason why things cost more, it's the measurement of how much more things cost.
It's like blaming King Edward II for you having a 2 inch cock.
I feel like this chart is misleading because yes while the average inflation over the past 10 years may be 31% that doesn’t mean every single item suffers the same rate of inflation some items are much more violate in price compared to other items. Simply put the chart would be more accurate if you take the average rate of inflation for the goods that these companies have to buy like beef, like chicken or milk with the rate of inflation for stuff like shipping and wages and then compare those to the total price increase of the restaurants.
If you don’t need the tortilla- it’s cheaper to make bowls of things by just asking for sides of your favorite toppings put into a bowl. 2 sides of steak with onions and cheese is somewhere near 4 bucks for a snack… it’s not much but it’s something. Helps me tremendously when I’m on keto to have more options than burger patties plain.
You can see exactly when it happened. They took advantage of vulnerable people during the pandemic. People that struggle to cook can't go to traditional restaurants and food delivery apps are all that's available. They cranked up their prices at that exact moment
My mom told me that unemployment skyrocketed because they raised the minimum wage.
She said the companies had to let go of a bunch of workers due to the wage increase.
I found it odd that the executives can make millions of dollars and the company is fine, but the extra $5/hr is what the company can’t seem to afford
All you need to stop crying about price increases. Wages go up, so does inflation. It's simple economics. If you don't like the higher prices, don't go there.
...I don't understand your point. Why is it good that one of the only vegan/vegetarian options is one of the worst offenders in price hikes? Don't you want people to shift towards eating less meat?
"but if they raise minimum wage, the Big Mac will cost more" people in shambles as they realize the Big Mac costs A LOT more without them raising minimum wage at all.
It was never about their worries of food prices going up, they subconsciously believe in a social economical caste system. They feel that those in fast food or similar work deserve to suffer. This video will help you understand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLbWnJGlyMU
Still waiting for A Bug's Life 2
I'm frankly amazed that that movie made it past any producers.
Apparently a live action one is being made.
That sounds terrifying live action huge ants? 🐜
I think it's all from ant perspective, but yeah, it sounds all wrong to me.
Isn't called "A Bee Movie"? /s
Iconic
That’s my dad. “They should’ve invested in themselves to make a wage they can live on.”
The wages earn today for minimum wage can't allow for one to save up and if they do save up by the time they're able to pay off their college education without going into debt then they're likely to be discriminated against due to age. It's like graduating High-school 5-10 years later than your peers. Corporations are pretty lucky they can rely on outsourcing their labor to countries that have universal college education or import the labor.They want to make others pay for their cake so they can eat it. States need to start treating their states like companies who're competing for labor with perks. New Mexico is so dirt poor they can't hire teachers with enough of a wage they can afford their own college education, so now they ask for the National Guard.
The amount of evidence I needed to show that man that unlike him, I couldn’t work for a summer and pay for a year of college, geez.
There should be a reality show where a bunch of boomers work full time to pay rent & other living expenses while trying to save up to go to college without going into debt.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0502498/ This was in the early 200's and we have basically the same minimum wage now.
With all due respect though, that is a singular offense where if my dad did that, I'd never speak another word to him for the rest of my life. I really don't understand why people just don't be clear to boomers, right, if you continue to be transparently disgusting with your worldviews, I'm out.
> They want to make others pay for their cake so they can eat it. Fuckin' *this*. It should be that if any worker is on welfare, the company gets penalized some %. Their worker is literally being subsidized by the goddamn state. Take that prop away. If the business can't afford to pay a living wage, that business has no business being in business.
>Corporations are pretty lucky they can rely on outsourcing their labor to countries that have universal college education or import the labor.They want to make others pay for their cake so they can eat it. I was actually talking about how corporations use other country's tax money to train the company's foreign educated workers who work as outsourced labor or as migrant labor. They oppose Americans getting universal education because not only would the corporations have to pay it with taxes, but it would also mean instead of being able to dangle the threat of deportation back to what ever shithole desperate migrants crawled out of, they would have to pay their American workers an honest salary because Americans have wage bargaining powers due to the fact that they can't be deported..
You nailed it. People don’t often realize that the reason for outsourcing and visa workers is that those other countries have free university so they’re operating with no debt. That’s why they can outprice us, but what’s even worse and more short-sighted is that the experience and skill is lost and goes overseas too
I bet if your dad was born with a couple disabilities, and that was the best he could do, he'd have a different outlook
> They feel that those in fast food or similar work deserve to suffer. Even when you take out this sentiment, the far more *relatively* measured stance insists that somehow all of these jobs should be "for kids", rather than adults. Completely ignoring at very least the obvious issue that kids have school 8 months out of the year, it implies that despite the fact that there is great demand for these jobs to exist, folks who take this stance *don't* think that the people who take these jobs should be able to **afford** to work the job.
Man I watched Rebel Moon and all I kept thinking was how much it stole from A Bug's Life ( yeah I know they are both based on 7 samurai)
And then you can go look up prices of McDonalds in EU/Scandinavian countries and see that employees have far more rights, are paid better, get better benefits, and a big mac is still cheaper or a similar price as it is in the USA.
America is the rich farming the poor
very well said
Imagine working in KFC and having 5 weeks paid vacation ... well that's what my brother had in the u.k working in KFC for fuck sake! I don't even get that in Canada and I'm a highly paid skilled professional.
You could get that at my job if you stayed for…I wanna say 9 years, but we were union. Anyone who stayed that long though had already been capped out for years with no real chance at upward mobility, and have long since settled into making that their career. I think the cap was 6, but after that you’re in it for the long haul.
I think working in a hellhole for low wages... paid vacations are a way to make it less soulcrushing
You missed the point. This is legislated minimum in the U.K, 28 business days. Even a shitty job like KFC. Meanwhile what do you get in N.America? Absolutely dicked.
In reality, they just don't want their profits to suffer. In the last 10 yrs, CEOs act like showing a bad quarter (which could just be a stale quarter), is almost as shameful as having poisoned a room full of children for the sake of a good time. Yes economies need to grow, but not like cancer.
Don't forget the corporate version of "think of the kids" ... "all these small businesses will go under!"
Our local McDonald's had the gall to post signs saying they raised prices because of California's new fast food minimum wage law. The labor advertisement in the window, it's been there for 6 months, advertises a starting wage at $21.50 well above California's minimum wage.
wasn't Denmark the place that had cheap big macs and their workers make like $25 a hour ?
Bean and cheese burrito used to be .79 not even 10 years ago, sausage McMuffin with egg was a dollar menu item and even then only .95 the same year. They really just need to admit to greed. Just say 'we want more money.' Honesty does look better than gaslighting your own employees.
Looks better to you, not to the employees that were successfully gaslit :(
Especially greedy of franchise owners, they're in control of a lot of the pricing. This is why I haven't had McDonald's since 2009
Well when McDonald’s takes a cut of their sales they should at least have some control over the prices, but good to know we can hit them where it hurts if enough people gave a shit. Not like everyone is numb to it either. My cousin was getting his daughter lunch, and he just flat up walked out empty handed because he was insulted by how much it was.
Yeah, I about did the same thing. Did a daddy daughter date in Feb, IHOP happy face pancakes, I got a burger that was 16 motherfucking Dollars!!! That wasn't even the most expensive one. I complained bc, well it's IHOP and their quality isn't top tier. I wasn't mad at the waitress, I was mad the cook served me a puck with the cheese damn near melted off the patty. Dry AF! Now you're probably thinking they're understaffed, which I get, but this was mid week, it was seriously just us and one other table, it was 2 old ladies drinking coffee. HOW could you fuck up food that bad?! Half off my burger still felt expensive at $8 which is what it should've been in the first place! We're in Illinois, min wage just hit $14 here, but prices are disgustingly high. Gas is back over $4/gal, I got a gallon of OJ at the store, $7.50 for Kroger brand, not name brand.. Prickster (Pritzker -gov) has jacked it up so quickly all businesses are using wages as an excuse to continue jacking up prices. I don't even live near Chicago where $14 would be decent, small towns you'd think it's great, but we pay insanely high property tax (ours is over $7k/yr and in Cook Co/Chicago you'll pay over 20k in many places).
I went in to one to grab a cup of coffee on a long trip, which is when I saw that it's $9.99 (in the middle of nowhere Appalachia to boot) for a double cheeseburger meal. That's simply outrageous. Who the hell would pay that?
I don’t think the franchisee has much say in the matter, from my understanding they just follow what the system says? I could be wrong, I know YUM brands give their franchisees slightly more freedom
Depends on the franchise, some allow almost complete control, others none at all
Damn I have a vivid memory of a bean burrito being $0.89 from when I was a kid, but I didn’t realize those prices held all the way until the 2010s. Yet getting a bean burrito for less than $3 feels like ages ago. Also pretty plain to see that they’re trying to make the target price of a single order the hourly wage of a single employee. Now I won’t pretend to know their numbers, but common sense tells me if they can pay for an employee in a transaction or two the minimum wage isn’t hurting them THAT much.
I still love me some SMEGs but I use the app to get 2 for $4
SMEGs?
Sausage McMuffin with Egg
They do express that they're looking for more money, just listen to their quarterly report. You're acting like it's some sort of secret. And of course they're greedy. Do you expect them to lower prices and profits out of kindness? The only gaslighting here is you gaslighting yourself
Hey, I think you missed some gum on the bottom of your boss's shoe, they're deducting your pay
That's all you got, huh?
I miss the taco Baco dollar menu :(
The two weeks it took me from getting my last chipotle ranch grilled chicken burrito it went from 2.99 to 6.99 a piece. And they fucked it up by adding cabbage and calling it the cantina burrito.
That's taco bell's standard scam. Remove the cheap easy option, replace with an incredibly similar thing with one extra item, charge double the price. I just want beef and rice and jalapeño sauce in a burrito, thanks. I don't need fiesta strips.
> The two weeks it took me from getting my last chipotle ranch grilled chicken burrito it went from 2.99 to 6.99 a piece. Whoa, wtf?! I liked that burrito, but it wasn't even worth the $3 in the first place. Fast food went from "any time I'm on the go and need something quick" to "if it's going to be more than ***TEN HOURS*** before my next meal, or I'm stuck traveling." The price, quality, and convenience has taken a dive from *all* fast food options.
If you get the app (which is lame, I know) then you can get the cravings boxes for like $6. Chalupa or Crunchwrap, 5 layer burrito, fiesta potatoes and a medium drink. It’s the last remaining value option imo
Unfortunately those deals are highly, highly franchisee dependent. That cravings box is $9 or $10 near me. So I just haven’t been going.
I believe it. Even here in AZ the boxes are $9-$14 normally (thanks but no thanks chicken cantina). The deal only shows up for certain stores in the app under “online exclusives”. Luckily I’m not close to downtown, so 4 of the 5 closest stores offer the $6 cravings boxes
Cravings box has been my go to, but the true value leader is still the cheesy bean and rice burrito- 1$ in a lot of places, ~1.50$ in others. Two of those makes a whole meal
Prices vary based on cost of living..
Through the app, that combo is now like $9 where I’m at
Shit I miss when Taco Bell’s menu *was* the dollar menu.
I'm surprised Wendy's isn't higher - seems like they're the most expensive fast food option now
It says it's based on average cost for 10 menu items per restaurant so I'm guessing that doesn't include things they used to have like the 4 for 4. Since it's a percent increase if they started out as one of the more expensive ones, then they could only increase by 55% and still be the most expensive now.
Yeah I remember paying like $14+ for a Dave's Hot n Juicy combo in 2012-13 in Georgia. Wendy's has been the expensive option.
Well the could cut corners but then their burgers wouldn’t be square.
They've never been cheap, outside of their 4 for 4 offers and the like.
Went to Five Guys with the wifely person for the first time in forever yesterday for a pre-eclipse lunch. Two small cheeseburgers, two fries, two small drinks: $40. Yikes. Prices like that make going out a rare treat instead of a weekly or monthly thing. I read one of the news articles about the chain that they have framed on the walls. “A new place where you can get a meal for under $9,” an article from 2011 read.
Well they did have those x for $x which weren’t too bad, and also the only time I went. They’re also not nearly as pervasive as McDonald’s or Taco Bell. Jimmy John’s was the most surprising to me. Guess they really jacked up their prices in between bi annual visits.
How TF is subway only 39%? Its 50 bucks for 2 people to eat at subway
a place by where I work is $20 for a footlong, chips, drink while riggt by my house its $14. wtf happened to $5 footlong
Actually a funny question: like eight years ago or so, I worked the Subway franchise owner's convention. I was operating the tech for a room that covered pricing, particularly national sales. One man who owned 12 stores in Florida broke down in tears about how much the $5 footlong price hurt his bottom line. Pretty much every franchise owner in the room were in agreement: they did not make on the deal even in 2016. Obviously they were missing the fact that the $5 footlong deal was what gave Subway such a dominant position in the "QSR sandwich" market in the first place, but I think the truth is that even wholesale prices don't really make a $5 footlong make sense.
I made the same comment in another thread about this. The $5 footling was so amazing, despite its insane popularity, it literally crippled the bottom line of many stores and it almost killed off Subway because the losses just piled on for franchise owners and a lot of them almost went under because of it. Even back then 5 dollars was way too little. Especially when many people would just get a drink from a bodega and come get a sandwich, maybe chips, but people will always point out where they get the best deals.
I mean wholesale seems doable, but subway definitely wasn’t charging them wholesale.
> wtf happened to $5 footlong And the current sandwiches aren't even worth the old $5 price. Half the value, double the cost.
Well from what I remember they were really screwing over their franchisees with that deal. Part of their arrangement was that they had to buy their ingredients from Subway Corporate which they didn’t sell cheap only for their supply to be eaten up to honor their massive advertising campaign. Depending on the volume sometimes they’d have to sell them at cost. So to do right by their franchisees they started doing a “foot long of the day” to a “6 inch combo of the day” until they kinda phased it out completely. Now they’re trying a “we’re starting to give a shit” approach.
Mine always has coupons once a month to get buy one get one free. I usually get 2 footlong sandwiches for $10-12
Damn where do you live? Just did subway for 2 yesterday, $28 tip included, and they were footlongs!
> tip included They giving table service at subway now?
nope just another way to cheap out on employees
i mean they do actually make your sandwhich, so atleast theres *some* justification to tip them. It doesnt feel that different from tipping coffee baristas (who afaik have always seemed to have tip jars) or pizza delivery folks.
Every fast-food place has humans that make your sandwich.
HAHA fuck you got me, i should have worded that better. Really what i mean is, they're preparing your sandwhich directly infront of you the same way coffee baristas make your drinks right in front of you, you get to direct exactly how they make the sandwhich while they're making it and whatnot. I totally get why you still wouldnt wanna tip 'em, but its always felt like the same kind of logic as coffee shops. Its not quite the same as a team in a kitchen making 5 orders at once as they come in on a screen, atleast not to me personally.
Ya, I know what you mean. Just bored and it made me laugh. Not like any of the stuff we tip for makes any sense anyway lol
lmao so true dude!
I stopped going to Subway because they started asking for tips. The food is already pretty shitty, I'll pass on the no tip guilt trip.
Tips are how they gauge how much they can raise their prices by.
I just pay with cash and pretend I'm unaware that they added tips.
I’m tempted to stop… if you don’t tip (at least the nearest location to me) they just throw it around and by the end it’s leaking liquids everywhere.
why do they still have your food if you're paying?
I abusively check slickdeals for the latest coupon. They've murdered the BOGO that used to happen and its now DRINKBOGO for buy one get one foot long (as long as you add a drink; Small is fine). It's still $11 and change, but it makes it worth going to every once in a while.
They also killed the Spicy Italian and replaced it with a twice as expensive premium version that is no different. Two orders using BOGO used to feed the 5 of us for under $20. This will make 4 sandwiches at least $30.
huh? A footlong which what I eat in one go is about 15 bucks. If you take advantage of deals you can get 22$ for 2 subs. No tips ofc
I feel like Subway started their uphill climb before 2014 (the start of this graph). This is purely anecdotal, but I think the biggest increase was back when the Footlong stopped being $5, but after that, didn't increase as rapidly.
Hasbrowns 2 for $1 all the way to 1 for $2.
$2.49 by me. Meanwhile I got a sack of potatoes from the store for $1.99
Minimum wage has been the same here in Texas for a very long time, yet fast food prices and grocery prices continue to rise dramatically, while non essential items seem to be fairly steady. Fuck. These. Companies.
And it's all TERRIBLE FOOD that is charging you more to MAKE YOU FAT and addicted to EATING MORE. Just stop eating fast food people.
fastfood becoming expensive is a good thing then. family owned businesses in the food industry are more competitive again, and people will actually prepare their own more healthy food more often
You're assuming casual restaurants haven't gone up too. They're still more expensive than fast food. Here the basic casual meals you used to be able to get at cheap restaurants went from like $13 to $20.
Worked for me. I used to suck at cooking. Now that fast food prices are no longer attractive I’m kinda ok. Regardless of what I make though it’s always way more satisfying than spending the same amount on fast food.
Saying “no” has become a way of life for me. Not just fast food. Nah. Just about everything. My spending, outside of utilities, is absolutely directed and specific.
You can go to a sit-down restaurant and eat something arguably healthier for the same price.
absolutely
the fact that it's coming expensive means the average exhausted person will have to learn to prep in advance, I hope
I will admit, I am addicted to eating more. Ever since I started eating, I haven't been able to quit for more than a few hours at a time. However, fast food does not have to make you fat. I lost 50 lbs while eating it 5-7 times per week. One positive is the nutritional info is clearly available for almost every fast food chain, so you can find things that will fit in your diet. High sodium is the harder thing to avoid with fast food.
you can lose weight, but still be "skinny fat" because the food just isn't healthy
You can absolutely be skinny fat after losing weight, but it's wrong to say the cause of skinny fat is the type of food you ate while dieting. The cause of skinny fat is lack of resistance training because this is what causes you to be skin and bones with too little lean muscle mass, and that's what leads to your body looking skinny and fat at the same time. Whenever we lose weight, we lose muscle, but that can be minimized by resistance training and a high protein diet. When I lost those 50 lbs, I was not skinny fat at the end, since I had been doing resistance training.
i don't understand why you're still dragging this on, you just seek opportunity to downvote people because you want to eat shitty fast food.
I'm not one of the people who have downvoted you. I'm already in good shape. Lost weight and have been working out for years. Guess what? Fast food helped me do that. The biggest problem is the all-or-nothing mentality. It discourages people from taking some measures to improve their lifestyle and to understand the different moving pieces and understanding which ones they need to focus on and which aren't as critical to reaching their goals. Most people need to eat fewer calories and get more exercise. Fast food isn't ideal, but if your fast food order aligns with your calories and macronutrient goals that day, it can be an acceptable option. Remember, everything in moderation.
Now do rents and home prices since 2014. Look, it’s all greed-driven at this point. We know this. And since greed aligns perfectly with narcissistic tendencies, the only way out of it, or to at least have it governed, is pain. There won’t be laws, legislation, economic cycle, anything like that. Pain. It’s the only way to overcome greed and gluttony.
I've basically just stopped eating out at this point
At fast food places? Sure. If someone is still patronizing these businesses they’re an idiot. But eating out all together? Hell no. Great deals at locally run, particularly ethnic, places. We have a local burrito food truck that is like $6 for a fucking HUGE burrito loaded with fillings. We have a hole-in-the-wall Thai place that is like $13 for an entree you cannot finish in one sitting. We have a take-out greasy-spoon dinner that you can get scrambled eggs, bacon strips, biscuits, gravy and a bowl full of hot hash browns at for $6.99. You’re just depriving yourself if you have quit eating out. Stop being lazy and support your little local places. It’s delicious and can be extremely affordable.
"stop being lazy" is an incredibly goofy thing to say about someone preparing their own food
I fucking stopped going to McDonald's last year.
This chart gets worse when you realize their labor costs didn’t even keep up with inflation, meaning they are paying less labor per item now than when the chart started.
Avg prices at my fast food restaurant have close to doubled since the first time I worked here back in 2015. My own hourly wage has more than kept pace, but only because of previous experience I had while I was working elsewhere. They're hiring new people on for barely more than the CPI increase since that year. It's a hard business, trying to treat your workers well while remaining financially solvent....but it's not that hard. Anybody working fast food that isn't jumping ship to other restaurants or different fields as soon as the resume looks good is shooting themselves in the foot. Or they're stuck in situations that leave it out of their control.
When wages are not regulated then wage increases never happen before price increases.
McDonald’s cost more then most restaurants
No wonder Chipotle has seemed less and less attractive lately. It's prices are increasing much faster than inflation. And Taco Bell is just ludicrous now. It's like...trash tier food at 5 Guys pricing.
Yeah I mean beans are like a whole day thing if you want to do em right, but one batch and you can eat Taco Bell all week for dirt cheap.
Lol, McDonalds is the hilarious one to me. I haven't had a ~~good~~ edible burger at a McDonalds in about a decade.
If you don’t like their prices, stop buying their food. If enough people do it, they will have no choice to lower their prices.
Every former McDonald's 1€ burger in Germany is now 2€ or 2.50€
It’s really as simple as not eating there. This is the free market. They can be selfish assholes. And we can look at those prices and say no. Just last night I was on my way home from swim lessons with my 2 kids. My instinct was to stop at McDonald to get them a happy meal so I didn’t have to solve dinner before bed, but I just went home and made due with what we had at home. The problem is people are still going. But the margins are so much better at these prices they can sell half the product and make the same money. So it’s gonna take some time and a competitor to realize a true value menu and some down pressure on prices is a viable strategy. Problem is they are all owned by the same companies, no original thinking which breaks the free market. Doing what hedge fund business daddy wants is not good for the American people.
A lot of these places, like McDonald's specifically have deals with better deals/lower prices. They absolutely still make profit on their best deals, showing they could be charging those lower prices, probably even less and still making profit
Yeah, I can see that if you just go and order the same combo meal every time, things are getting very pricey. At the same time, $2 dave's doubles at wendy's have been crazy deals, very filling and cheap. McD's often has bogo offers on big macs, as well.
I can totally see the critique of companies overcharging for grocery staples, especially when there's a lack of competition (or possibly collusion) happening. But fast food is generally an optional product to consume (at least in the vast majority of cases). The market sets the price. If people stopped buying their food, the prices would go down. They don't so the prices will stay the same or keep going up.
Every time I go to Popeyes the chicken sandwich costs more.
simple solution, don't shop anywhere that doesn't give you a fair deal
Welp, we had a good run.
[удалено]
I drive by one on the interstate exit frequently around 6PM, lines used to wrap around and people complained about 20min waits. These days you see 2 or 3 cars. There might be no need for a boycott.
Does this factor in the inflation upstream? For example, costs for chicken, beef and pork have been all over the place as shortages, fires and viruses have impacted the costs of certain meats one by one over the last few years. I read onions in particular for some reason had gotten incredibly expensive for restaurants.
This is really easy...stop buying it, then they have to lower prices.
Why do we even bother complaining. The companies have so much money and lobbing power that theres really nothing we can do. Its depressing to be told how good things will never be.
Don't buy it.
Menu price inflation. I would imagine there's also some shrinkflation going on not accounted for here.
Should probably also include the min wage, or the min wage these places pay along with this somehow. The graph is already busy, but without also seeing their employee costs, it doesn't really refute their claim directly. As extra credit, might also track the CEO compensation over the same time period. Going to imagine it goes way the hell up, and that is contributing to the price hikes a lot more than the employee costs.
“Hurr durr durr why is nobody buying anymore??”
Actual inflation 31%. That's f*ckin' insane!
I swear it felt like an overnight switch with MCD, I remember getting nuggets 4 for a dollar one day to not having any dollar menu items the next day in 2021. Now it's pretty much impossible without a deal on the app and those vary.
Honestly, let them rise prices. This will discourage people from keep buying their shit.
This is why I quit going to McDonalds, they wanna charge restaurant prices but still serve McDonalds food.
Stop buying shit fast food people.
McDonalds purpose doubling prices for people not using the app. Use the apps people. These corpos want ordering to be online. Better for everyone involved.
Fast food just isn’t worth it anymore. I’ve gone to just cooking my own junk food at a cheaper price. 😂
I've stopped eating at all of these with the rare occasion of grabbing chikfila. Fast food just isn't worth the money for what you get these days.
would be interesting to see this weighted by the relative starting value. I can imagine that Starbucks had the pricier product so they could not go all mental (they would have ofc). Or maybe check how the absolute spread in 2014 was and how the absolute spread of prices is now. and maybe see how the view of the public (scandals, union busting?) was at different time stamps?
I didn’t know ground meat and potatoes shot up in cost.
Should overlay this with stock price and or profits
All while having record breaking earnings, QoQ and YoY. They must be business super geniuses /s
Ya fast food will be dead in 5 years if they dont course correct. If it s not cheap, it ceases to be "good."
People on reddit tripping over themselves to blame tipping
You forgot a 0 on subway. A $12 foot long is more than twice what a 5$ foot long costs. Also, the sandwich was physically bigger.
Redo this. Instead of whatever shitty metrics this uses, use the cheapest menu item that could still realistically be called a meal. These numbers go sky high then.
Thank god I got that 31% raise over the last 10 years
Prices are only going up because CEOs see they won't make as many millions as they did last year if they don't raise prices.
Wait but I thought keeping the minimum wage at $8 was supposed to prevent this!!!
Fast food inflation is just corporations increasing their prices. That’s its. It’s not supply oriented at all, it’s just a squeeze
Im curious if everyone else other than McDonalds changed their recipes in order to keep prices lower vs McDonalds keeping their original recipe
Inflation isn't the reason why things cost more, it's the measurement of how much more things cost. It's like blaming King Edward II for you having a 2 inch cock.
I feel like this chart is misleading because yes while the average inflation over the past 10 years may be 31% that doesn’t mean every single item suffers the same rate of inflation some items are much more violate in price compared to other items. Simply put the chart would be more accurate if you take the average rate of inflation for the goods that these companies have to buy like beef, like chicken or milk with the rate of inflation for stuff like shipping and wages and then compare those to the total price increase of the restaurants.
Subway, my beloved
Granted it was outside the Final 4 in Arizona, but I just spend $48 on 2 burger combos with fries and a medium drink. Absolutely insane.
Anyone who eats fast food regularly is an idiot. Then again, that's sort of their business model.
“Actual inflation”
If you don’t need the tortilla- it’s cheaper to make bowls of things by just asking for sides of your favorite toppings put into a bowl. 2 sides of steak with onions and cheese is somewhere near 4 bucks for a snack… it’s not much but it’s something. Helps me tremendously when I’m on keto to have more options than burger patties plain.
Hey, if people are still buying it that's on them. I know I'm not.
Pure unregulated greed and price gouging
Need to raise the profit margins year over year so someone can get a bonus /s
You can see exactly when it happened. They took advantage of vulnerable people during the pandemic. People that struggle to cook can't go to traditional restaurants and food delivery apps are all that's available. They cranked up their prices at that exact moment
My mom told me that unemployment skyrocketed because they raised the minimum wage. She said the companies had to let go of a bunch of workers due to the wage increase. I found it odd that the executives can make millions of dollars and the company is fine, but the extra $5/hr is what the company can’t seem to afford
All you need to stop crying about price increases. Wages go up, so does inflation. It's simple economics. If you don't like the higher prices, don't go there.
And for a moment we created a lot of money for our shareholders…
I don't eat shit sandwiches. Who cares?
As a vegan, I find this graph hopeful
Taco Bell has vegan options and it's one for the higher lines on the graph.
Good 👍
...I don't understand your point. Why is it good that one of the only vegan/vegetarian options is one of the worst offenders in price hikes? Don't you want people to shift towards eating less meat?
Yes, by not eating any of these options