Nearly 80% of Americans now view fast food as a luxury
Nearly 80% of Americans now view fast food as a luxury
Once viewed as a quick, affordable meal, fast food is increasingly seen as a luxury by many Americans due to rising menu prices, according to a new LendingTree survey. The financial advice website …
Well yeah, that shit's expensive.
Which is ironic as fast food used to have 2 appeals - quick and cheap.
I'm not sure how quick they are these days because I can no longer afford it.
Which is ironic
Is it tho?
It's capitalism, once you dominate the market share you raise prices.
Fast food pushed out small local shops, but there's a few major chains everywhere. So now they're more expensive than sit down restaurants, because the "speed" which isn't all that fast anymore is treated as a premium and not a side effect from being cheap/easy food.
Like, everything is based off stock price, and stock price is about profit margin going up. And that's exponential, it's not mathematically possible to keep going up.
The only way is to keep pushing up prices and making products shittier.
It's not irony, it's working as intended.
Capitalism only works when you break up monopolies regularly so there can be competition.
Hell, this is way more evident in a franchise model. The actual owners can't really do anything, they're locked in long leases and are forced to buy from only one supplier.
If McDonald's says party prices go up 50%, the franchise owner has literally zero options. They have to pay it.
The whole system is fucked and pretty much a pyramid scheme.
When FDR created the minimum wage he explicitly stated that someone making it should be able to live in some comfort. That meant not just food and shelter, but some savings and a chance to have a few nice things.
In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour. The average house was $11,000.00. Two people could eat and go to a concert for $5.00. In those days, $1 million was an incredible fortune.
And now, $1 million probably isnt even enough to retire
That's the other crazy thing. Look at all the millionaire actors and music stars. They have much bigger incomes than past artists, but is Tom Hanks or Taylor Swift really that much richer than John Wayne or Marilyn Monroe? A doctor today is giving his family the life a moderately successful plumber had 50 years ago.
According to a financial advisor I recently spoke with, it’s not. Guess I’ll be working all the way into my grave. 🤷♂️
The wages of fast food workers have been increasing over the past decade. Ten years ago, their median wage was $8.69/hr. Today, it's over $14/hr. In California, the minimum is now $20/hr.
Increased wages for low income workers are good, since they have outpaced inflation. But they will inevitably result in increased prices. It's unrealistic to expect the employer to absorb all of the increased costs.
And fast food employers often couldn't absorb the wage increases even if they wanted to. Remember, a McDonald's employee isn't paid by McDonald's HQ, they are paid by the person who runs the individual location, who is also paying McDonald's HQ for ingredients. Some of the franchise owners are doing well, some of them aren't, but all of them are going to raise prices.
In other words, if you don't want to pay more for fast food, then you don't actually want to see fast food workers earn a better wage.
In other words, if you don't want to pay more for fast food, then you don't actually want to see fast food workers earn a better wage.
If a business relies on exploitation, it shouldn't exist. If paying the workers a living wage means raising the prices beyond a sustainable level for the business, this business shouldn't exist. If a business pays out millions in bonuses to it's executives while the workers are relying on government subsidies, the business shouldn't exist.
I'm happy to say that I emphatically want better wages for service industry workers. IDC how much food goes up, or how many mega franchises have to close for it. Either better wages, or cause these these super franchises to close so mom and pops and open instead.
I also don't think it's unrealistic to expect businesses to give up a small portion of their infinite growth targets to actually cover their employees needs. Maybe a large departure from the past 50 years, but it's absolutely something most of them can afford.
If a business genuinely can't afford it, then I'd also be okay with my tax money going towards a business analysis for that owner to find a way to make it work. If they still can't, then how long were they really going to be open anyway and what were they really adding to their community?
Who remembers Arby's 5 for 5?
I'm old enough to remember 5 for $2.50, but I was like 10 or some shit back then
I remember when you could get a taco for 59 cents at Taco Bell. And this wasn't the 40s, this was the 90s.
Yup, the Taco Bell commercial jingle in the early 90s was based on their menu prices:
59, 79, 99
Everything (or just about everything) on the menu fit into those price ranges. Fast food was where you went to get something cheap and filling. Prices go up, I get that. But even back then, that was considered super cheap. Still, inflation isn't the problem. The problem is that wages have not been keeping pace with inflation for decades.
It would be dubious if you were referring to the 40's, not only given the age that would make you but for the fact that Taco Bell didn't exist yet.
Remember toonie Tuesday at KFC?
$5 foot longs at subway!!
Fast food used to be shit quality for little money.
Now its shit quality for a fuckton of money.
Cook at home folks, more nutricious, tastes better, is cheaper and if you pick the right recipes its also fast.
And if you don't want to cook for yourself, at least go to a local take-out restaurant that probably costs less than the shitty fast food, even if you have to wait a few more minutes for it.
if you call in advance they are usually the same speed if not faster
Luxury price while receiving sub par service.
Good. It should have been the whole time.
It always was.
This does bring the question up in my mind of what a restaurant that wasn't a luxury would look like, ie, something that sells ready to eat food at prices that make it competitive with cooking at home, and which is healthy enough to eat on a daily basis without ill effect. My guess is that it would be largely a matter of having to carefully choose recipes that both use ingredients that are cheap in bulk, and able to be at least partially automated to keep staff costs low, but which are still nutritious and rely on minimal processed ingredients. Probably soups and chili and the like I'd imagine.
It's a place where they have a large tray of food and you just plop some on your own smaller tray. Basically the same as the college dining hall. A small amount of staff can provide meals for thousands during the lunch hour.
Hmm sounds like luxury to me.
You may be interested in automats.
It is a luxury so is.grocery shopping. Meanwhile we are told that there is no inflation
Who the hell is saying there is no inflation?
Inflation is well under control, quite low in fact. Lemmy has this bizarre view that because prices didn't come down, inflation is still rampant.
That is not how the world works, hell, that not even how the word works. Inflation is a measure of how quickly prices are rising. Deflation is when prices go down, and it's generally an awful sign for the economy. tl:dr; Prices go down, you lose your job.
When the fuck has eating out ever been anything else?
It is since people decided that you should order through a unified app and have it delivered.
Fast food can be cheap if you start away from the sucker options, but not when you're sending half your food money to a silicon valley billionaire.
Good. A first step vmgetting the obesity numbers down.
From the article - they believe eating fast food should be cheaper than eating at home, but isn't. What kind of fucked up belief is this? No wonder they view fast food as a luxury.
Fucked up? It’s not a matter of what “should be.” It was reality for decades. When were you born?
When I was growing up dominos did the “5-5-5” deal. $15+tax for 3 medium 1-topping pizzas. You can feed like 6-10 people with that depending on their age. You’re talking like $2 a person.
$1 menus included 1-2 sandwich options. Usually a chicken sandwich (obviously fried not grilled).
Meals with fries and drinks were $4-6 all in.
This was the 90’s and 2000’s. You could feed a family of 4 with $10 or less without much thought.
Used to be able to get $1 cheeseburgers. The loose change menu was a huge thing here, you could actually wander in with some coins and walk out with some food.
At $1 a burger, in less than 3 minutes, that's way cheaper, "tastier" (subjective), faster, and no cleaning up, than having a pot of lentil curry.
The cheapest fastfood cheeseburgers usually aren't many calories, and they are even worse when it comes to overall nutrition and satiety. You may be getting something for a $1 but it could hardly be called a meal.
It was when I was a kid. "We have food at home" is what my mother always said when we wanted some fast food. That was in the 70s.
Nowadays it doesn't even matter. Grocery food prices are so high it is marginally more to go to a fast food place.
But I forgot there is no inflation or war in ba sing se
No one seems to be reading the article - it was a survey of only 2,000 participants on a financial advice website. These folks have already made poor decisions and likely not experienced in managing their money. The usual FUD that the OP posts everywhere.
It being published on a financial advice website doesn’t imply that the survey was conducted on visitors to the website.
How much of the increased price of fast food is because restaurants have to pay workers more than $7.25/hour now? It seems like the entire business model of cheap fast food was premised on low-quality food and labor costs so low that most fast-food workers qualified for public assistance. Leaving aside the low-quality oligarchical food product industry and just looking at the labor side, it's still a failure. And a business model that relies on food stamps and welfare for its employees really isn't a business model.
Exactly. Guess those who disliked didn't read it through.
Turns out, the entire business model of fast food chains is based off ripping its employees.
Now that this loophole is closed, we see the real price of it.
Next step is to realize that it's not fast food that is expensive - it's our salaries that are pressed down so much we can't afford some fries.
This is the EXACT reason why prices NEVER WENT UP until the $7.25 Minimum Wage was RAISED!
