Woooooo… price went up $0.05 to $0.25?
So the only thing preventing fast food joints from paying a living wage was a quarter a burger? 🤔
Dick’s is LAUGHING at them:
https://mynorthwest.com/3177050/how-does-dicks-drive-in-pay-workers-19-an-hours/
Some may remember several years ago when the jackass head of Papa Johns cried to Fox News, “if I have to give my employees decent health care the price of pizza will go up 10 cents!!” - as if that comment was supporting his argument.
Economics of scale.
The end consumer doesn’t give two shits about that small an increase.
But the CEO sees that as $0.10 across a billion dollars gross revenue…
That could be 100 million in profit.
Even tho the money is hypothetical still, he ain’t letting go of it.
The option wasn’t giving up 10 cents per pizza though, it was raising the price.
Exactly…
If they raised the price ten cents to pay for healthcare and/or a living raise, they don’t view it as costing them nothing.
They see it as losing the money they aren’t even currently getting.
I feel like I’m just repeating myself, but it’s hard to make it any simpler.
Don’t worry I understood what you meant (and am slightly confused by the other comments — maybe they think they’d sell less pizza and therefore make less over all?)
I got that in my pocket. Let’s roll the dice John, I can afford it.
Well, he’s not with the company anymore.
He’s more of a step dad John now.
It went up $0.00 - $0.25 because the fries stayed the same price.
Don’t forget this from a YEAR ago…
Raising Cane’s raises average wages to $19.50 an hour — ‘The right thing to do’
The higher price of $8.65 for a cheeseburger combo doesn’t seem too bad to me. Only one or two places I can think of around here are cheaper than that.
Well, the difference is that In-N-Out makes a decent burger.
I’ve had both, I’d totally eat a bag of Dick’s. :)
I have yet to have a decent In-N-Out burger. Burned little hockey pucks. 4 different restauaraunts. LA, Sun City, Cupertino, San Francisco. Animal style, not animal style… doesn’t matter.
You’re right it’s overrated. I prefer 5 guys ir the habit or plenty of local spots around me.
Their fries are the best part. Shake Shack is also pretty great. Get a milkshake with your burger and fries, trust me on this.
I’ve seen shake shack over the years but haven’t had a chance to go. Good call ill check it out this weekend.
Are you a millionaire?!
Just kidding, yeah they’re good!
Lul you’re right, a bit pricey but they’re good. I very occasionally treat myself to one of these places, I’m trying to eat healthier so it’s mostly home cooked meals for me.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like in-n-out. I’ve only had it twice but both times were extremely underwhelming; once in Phoenix AZ and once in Vegas. Over cooked burgers and shit fries. I do not understand the hype at all.
Never had or even heard of dicks. I’m from the Midwest though so I’m assuming it’s another west coast chain.
Seattle area specifically, there’s only nine Dick’s Drive-In locations.
That’s a bit surprising, but you can ask for your patty to be “medium rare.” I’ve found Dick’s to be more well-done, and the first time I ate there, the fries were absolutely disgusting. It’s definitely the place to go when it’s 1 AM and you need some burg, but my first stop any time I’m back in CA is In-N-Out.
It’s always wild for me to read such high opinions of In-N-Out, not to yuck anyone’s yum but I’m from the east coast and was pretty excited to try In-N-Out when I came out west for work about a decade ago. But I don’t get the hype for it at all, fries were alright and burger was acceptable, I’ve tried it again since and felt the same, and Dicks is about the same, nothing to really write home about
I’m glad you enjoy it, but if your ever in the southeast give Cookout a shot and see how it compares for you
Dick’s doesn’t pretend to be more than it is, is the difference. No weird religious foundation, no secret menu, just a bag of reasonably priced burgers that you can walk to after midnight.
I got no beef with Dicks, it’s the closest thing to a spiritual brother to Waffle House as I can find out here
Cookout is great for milkshakes the burger and fries not really any better than any other fast food place catering to high school/nostalgia and a weird cult.
The thing about In-N-Out is that they get compared to Five Guys or Shake Shack when you really should be comparing them to McDonald’s. A Double Double is way better than a Big Mac, and it’s still less expensive.
I don’t think you have the same In-N-Out that we do. The only thing more anemic is a Jimmy John’s sandwich.
If nothing else, a franchise that does two items and completely whiffs one of them (french fries) doesn’t deserve quite the fawning level of appeal.
If I wanted disappointing, flavourless chips with a weird texture, I could buy a bag of Great Value Potato Derived Product Stick Units for a buck fifty and be done with.
I’ve only visited ones around the Bay Area, and most frequently the Mountain View location at Grant & El Camino Real.
Odd that you’d compare them to Jimmy John’s, which I recall making a very decent sub, as opposed to other popular chains such as Jersey Mike’s, which is the first that comes to mind when reading the term “anemic.”
Y’all are tripping, Jersey Mike’s is way better than Jimmy Johns.
I’ve never had Jersey Mike’s, nor am I likely to with their annoying ads, but I’ve tried Jimmy John’s, and their BLT was mostly mayo on a plastic-adjacent bun.
It’s entirely likely their quality has gone way downhill, and that there’s variation between locations. It’s been a couple years since I had one of their sandwiches and it was quite good, as were the many I’d had years prior.
Man, I wish more businesses operated like Dick’s. They sound like they legitimately care about their workers and community. What good is the “free” market when it comes at the expense of peoples’ happiness and wellbeing?
Dick’s are genuinely good people. If you find yourself in the Seattle area, hit them up!
Man over the last few years prices around me went up way higher than that and nobody got a raise so…
A few years ago a dollar would get you a double-cheeseburger at the McDonald’s down the street from my office. Now it will get you 30% of a hash brown.
The employees make the same now as they did before.
Oh shit remember Dollar Menus?
Pretty much every fast food place had a $1 menu for awhile, full of cheap stuff like single cheeseburgers and small fries. You could spend $3-4 and get quite a bit of food for an adult!
I remember when I visited the USA as a child in 2000 and handed over $1 for the “$1 cheeseburger” and was told no, it’s not a dollar, thats the price excluding tax…
Why the fuck does the sign say $1 if its not $1! 🤦🤦🤦
Boring but sensible answer to lots of versions of the same basic question (ISP/telephone line quotes, retail prices, etc):
The US is made up of tens of thousands of mini-jurisdictions, each with their own unique rules and regulations. Sometimes taxes, permits, fees, etc change from place to place and the price is going to be different from one place to another. When you have a national-level marketing department, it’s easier just to quote the price you know applies everywhere, and let the locals add the rest on top.
For phone service it’s really crazy. I used to work for a phone company, and there were outlier counties that charged $12/month in fees (50 cents is closer to normal) to each phone line for access to 911 service on what was nominally a $15 landline service. We couldn’t just honor the $15 price and eat that $12 on top of the rest of the local fees and taxes - we’d have been losing money with each additional customer.
So the result was the national advertised price was still $15, and depending on your jurisdiction your out-the-door cost was going to be between $20 and $40.
but that’s no excuse for the price seen / shown inside the store to not be the price you pay - especially with electronic display screens now.
Also even before that it’s not complicated to set the price including tax then deduct the tax from the listed price at point of sale, as it had to be calculated at that point regardless…
Because that is the price of the item. The tax is on the sale. Some states do not allow you to advertise the post tax price. It’s incredibly stupid.
At least that is somewhat reasonable. Internet companies regularly advertise one price and then add a bunch of fees on top that can add another 20% to the cost. The FCC is forcing them to cut that out and they are bidding that they cannot be expected to know what all of the fees will be on each location as if they do not have all that info on their fucking database.
Fyi that was a rhetorical question.
And there’s nothing indicating how much that tax is. You either know or you don’t.
because sales tax!
The hash browns inflation really has been something else man. I feel like it’s partially because the app basically gives away a bunch of breakfast food almost for free, and then asks if you want to add a hash brown to the order. Of course I’m going to add the hash brown. It’s bullshit that it is $3, but I can’t like not have the hash brown. That would be un-American
Absolutely agreed. Wages keep going up yet everyone is struggling. Hell I make a good salary and I’m struggling to scrape by. I was better off in 2019 making a fraction of what I’m making now. Wtf is happening?
Corporate greed.
COVID and the result of 4 years of tax cuts for billionaires/corporations catching up to us. It’s probably going to continue to get worse while Republicans block congress because, while under Biden they can’t really get much done in terms of fucking up wealth taxes even more, their presence also means that we can’t really fix it either and it’s going to stay broken with the rich getting taxed far too little.
Progressive New Deal tax policies with very good wealth taxes (around 94% for the highest marginal tax rate) are what made the American economy boom during and after WW2, and conservatives took that away from us by cutting their tax rate by over half (Reagan especially fucked it up and made it as low as 30%) and shifting the tax burden to the poor. Now we have a situation where the ultra-rich pay less taxes than the working class and our society is collapsing due to it.
Except they were already charging more than enough before the minimum wage increase. People should stop blaming the employees and start looking at the business owners.
Exactly, if the quartely profits are there then the company has no excuse. Actually they do but it’s just greed.
Ah yes, the infamous greed of In-N-Out who pays more than the average software developer salary for their store managers.
There’s a lot of companies that suck, but In-N-Out and Costco are two of the fairly well known examples of just how fairly large and successful companies could treat their employees if they weren’t leeches.
I was talking in general, for example John Deere a few years ago had a worker’s strike and management made a deal with the union (workers didn’t get what they asked for but they got some concessions) days or 1 day before earnings were made public and it turns out the company could have afforded to pay far more than even the workers’ full demands. The reason they didn’t was greed and the reason they partially capitulated right before the earnings report was fuckery. Or leechery. Definitely dishonest and cowardly, whatever it was.
Someone needs to compare the profits a company made in the year before and the year after the change.
If the restaurant can’t afford to stay in business because it’s paying enough for its workers to live, then it doesn’t deserve to exist.
…and if a company can’t afford to pay their lowest paid workers a few dollars more when the highest paid CEOs are paid 500 to 1000 times more than them, then maybe the CEOs don’t deserve to be paid that much.
Maybe there’s a wealth gap in society that doesn’t deserve to exist, and that’s the real problem.
It’s funny cause lots (not all) of the small business owners complaining wouldn’t have a problem if they worked their own business instead of just hiring someone to do it for them and getting paid a ton to just own it.
My boss has worked one shift in 23 years. One.
He somehow knows exactly what we’re dealing with.
He hasn’t had to grocery shop for himself since 1989. He still somehow knows exactly what we’re dealing with.
“When I worked in the mines in the late 70s I made less than you make and I bought two corvettes and a boat! Y’all blow your money!”
No, you’re out of touch.
I hear corvette and I just imagine two little picket ships to protect the boat.
Nah, it’s his Blockade Runners for his side smuggling income
But then all those workers will lose their jobs
Good, then the market will be freed for an other company to take its place, which can pay its workers a decent wage, so they can rehire all those workers whom lost their job.
A business doesn’t have the right to exist, only the privilege.
And that privilege expires if it doesn’t add anything positive to society.
25% raise cost… 1-2.5% price increase? I’ll stand behind fast food workers any day at that price to my bottom dollar.
Still not buying in and out because of their ludicrous mask double standard, but if anyone brings it to me I’ll eat it happily!
Why do that when they can keep wages the way they are, claim at 10% increase in costs and pocket everything. Business is easy.
What double standard? Or should I say, double-double standard?
In California, and maybe Oregon, employees can wear masks if they feel it necessary, and they have to follow mask mandates established by the governing bodies.
All other in and out restaurants (not located in those 2 states) employees are not allowed to wear a mask at any time for any reason.
Goddamn shithole states
The state hasn’t had any say in it, it’s the company (operated out of California I Believe) that’s telling the employees they can’t wear masks. I used to rely on in and out as a pick me up after a bad day (like today), now I’m eating local.
I think they’re saying the states are shitholes because they allow shitbag corporations to pull shit like that.
Right, and the West Coast states aren’t letting them pull that shit.
The “problem” is, they already were profitable and making money, they didn’t have to fuck over customers. The owners just can’t even comprehend the concept of “making less money”.
That is the problem, but End Wokeness is not claiming that. They are claiming that we end up paying for the raises so we shouldn’t do it which is fucken bullshit. What 4000 years of mamon worship does to a mf.
It’s wild, they’re like, “OMG PRICES WENT UP $0.10!” like any normal person wouldn’t happily pay an extra quarter so the employees maybe wouldn’t hate their job as much and could, you know, eat healthy food, pay for shelter, and have adequate clothing.
This just makes me hate the C-suite that much more, narrow minded psychopaths.
Also 50% less chance of someone spitting on or having sex with your food
As someone else here said, apparently In-N-Out was already paying $20/hr, they may have just used this opportunity to increase prices because everyone else is doing it as well.
Other restaurants apparently saw much steeper increases:
The biggest leap was at a Burger King, where a Texas Double Whopper meal cost $15.09 on March 29 but surged to $16.89 on April 1, a whopping increase of $1.80 (nearly 12%) for the same meal. The Big Fish meal also jumped from $7.49 on the menu before April 1 to $11.49 after — an increase of $4 (53%).
They were going to raise prices anyways.
They say this as though restaurants weren’t just raising prices anyways.
A double double was $5.30 in January 2024. Minimum wage was $16.
A double double was apparently $5.65 in March of 2024. Minimum wage was $16.
Its almost as if they just raise prices cause the executive suite wants new endangered animal leather underwear.
See my vest! See my vest!
Made from real Gorilla Chest?
You think they have reasons?
Absolutely, and much like how many cities in the U.S. are designed around cars: they’re bad reasons.
That “EndWokeness” account always posts the dumbest takes.
The poor guy just wants to sleep.
I mean yeah… “End wokeness”
End… The acknowledgement that there has been systemic racism that has affected a population of people that we might better treat our neighbors…?
End… The consideration of people not like yourself and recognize that they face injustices and persecution that we might stop them from being persecuted…?
Yeah… Anyone who wants to end those things and everything else that “woke” stands for is never going to exactly have anything intelligent thing to say.
:(
Makes sense it’s probably musks alt account
Almost as if it’s a grifter account that exists to illicit reactionary responses, both for and against. I would hardly even call this a “take” since it isn’t even an outright opinion. Let me be clear though, I do not like this account either.
I think it’s promoted heavily on twitter. What a shithole.
This is the wrong argument and I’m tired of it. The real argument here is - McDonald’s et al don’t need to raise prices because of the new wage law. They choose to raise prices rather than cut executive pay, or adjust profit margins, or make any other kind of internal adjustments.
This discussion needs to stop being “x raised prices because they had to and government bad” and start being “Billion-dollar-profit company is screwing over consumers because they can”.
Even worse, they have empirical proof that they are able to use good ingredients, pay a living wage, provide paid parental leave, and give retirement and medical while having lower prices than they charge here. It’s called Denmark.
This is like the housing shortage issue, the real issue is not that there are not enough houses and we need to build more, it’s that wealthy people need to adjust their hoarding to leave enough for others to have a home.
We know of course wealthy people will not do this voluntarily, so that leaves two options – we need more good people running for office to displace the psychopathic hoarder class (and people to vote for them, i.e. political reform) or some sort of revolution that eliminates that hoarder class.
so that leaves two options – we need more good people running for office to displace the psychopathic hoarder class (and people to vote for them, i.e. political reform) or some sort of revolution that eliminates that hoarder class.
Well, you say two options, but I only see one restated two times with slightly different wordings. As in, it’s gonna be more or less both of those things, to some extent.
the real issue is not that there are not enough houses and we need to build more, it’s that wealthy people need to adjust their hoarding to leave enough for others to have a home.
Yep. It’s fucking insane that we’re having to pretend like there’s not enough to go around when there’s just not enough to satiate a minuscule part of the population for whom nothing will ever be enough.
It’s like a hospital pretending there’s not enough supplies to give patients with terminal cancer and broken bones pain medication because 95% of meds are being shot up by some junkies on the roof, and everyone knows it and even curry favour from the junkies (who wouldn’t mind stealing your grandmas cancer meds.)
It’s like a hospital pretending there’s not enough supplies to give patients with terminal cancer and broken bones pain medication because 95% of meds are being shot up by some junkies on the roof, and everyone knows it and even curry favour from the junkies (who wouldn’t mind stealing your grandmas cancer meds.)
I love this analogy
Well thank you. Now that I thought about where it came from, one guy who definitely helped me realise how many traits proper junkies and some hustle-life hedgies share. Sam Polk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/for-the-love-of-money.html
IN my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I was addicted.
Wealth addiction was described by the late sociologist and playwright Philip Slater in a 1980 book, but addiction researchers have paid the concept little attention. Like alcoholics driving drunk, wealth addiction imperils everyone. Wealth addicts are, more than anybody, specifically responsible for the ever widening rift that is tearing apart our once great country. Wealth addicts are responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor and the annihilation of the middle class. Only a wealth addict would feel justified in receiving $14 million in compensation — including an $8.5 million bonus — as the McDonald’s C.E.O., Don Thompson, did in 2012, while his company then published a brochure for its work force on how to survive on their low wages. Only a wealth addict would earn hundreds of millions as a hedge-fund manager, and then lobby to maintain a tax loophole that gave him a lower tax rate than his secretary.
It’s literally the worst addiction there is, because with money, you can get any other thing you might also be addicted to, and with enough money, you don’t just start perceiving the world differently (like say when you’re reeeaally high on certain substances), your world literally and actually changes, twists, as no-one around you wants to be honest with you and you end up fucked up and delusional like JKR or Elon Musk.
And that sort of thing happens with drug dealers as well, now that I think about it, actually. A lot of them, even minor ones, start thinking they’re hot shit because they have some drooling junkies chasing then anywhere, chasing freebies.
I wish there was a goddamn economic calculator. Revenue minus (operating costs + re-investment + R&D) then divide it amongst all employees. Let us rank companies based on how bad that number is vs what the employees are actually paid.
Not an economist.
Also, the amount they raise the prices is much more than necessary to “break even”. This is what they always do.
This is an extremely small price to pay for someone being able to live.
I’ll happily spend an extra nickel for a shake if it means someone can house and clothe themselves, or a quarter for a burger for the same.
I make decent money (not extravagant, but I’m not exactly struggling at minimum wage), and this is a pittance for what they are getting out of it.
But conservatives, or more accurately, aggressively capitalist people, only see that their prices are going up. They’re looking at "how does this affect me " with no consideration of helping their fellow citizen. It only affects them by costing them more for a burger.
Pathetic. Devoid of any empathy.
In-N-Out raised their prices post-pandemic without workers getting an increase in pay. The cause and effect here is not credible.
Of course not. Prices will rise whenever the capitalist assholes at the top think the market will bear it.
And the market will bear it when idiots believe it’s the minimum wage to blame and not the greedy executives. If they thought they were being ripped off they would quit spending money at the price gougers establishments. I’ve noticed prices go up the most at places that traditionally serve right wing customers. For example, a local hardware store in my area really raised prices and had sales they called “inflation busters”. The whole thing is a joke.
There might be a bit more to it (e.g. location or something) but as written it sounds like you are implying hardware stores (or their customers) skew right.
I see how it looks that way. I was referring to a specific hardware store chain that is local in my area. Some of the employees wear “stand for the flag” shirts with the company logo. While the flag itself isn’t partisan the need to display it on a shirt certainly is.
My favorite is when they’re like “I’m an EMT and I only make $18 an hour! It’s not fair they get more!” Like yes, YOU ARE BEING UNDERPAID. Demand more for your work (collectively), don’t bring others down for the sake of your overlords.
Yep. Just because you’re underpaid, doesn’t mean others shouldn’t get paid more because it’s more than what you make. You are underpaid, you should earn more. They are also underpaid, they should also make more.
But people get all hung up on someone at a “lesser” job making more than they do… So go out and get yours. What’s the problem?
So a 25% wage increase resulted in price rises of less than 4%. This is such a good trade off that you’d have to be extremely intellectually dishonest to be able to be against it.
Or extremely selfish. They see their wage stagnating while costs increase and think of lower-income earners as deserving of their place in squalor, rather than respected and dignified.
Removed by mod
Aww :(
Those price increases of 25%+ are not because of this change, that’s just opportunism. Price increases of between 5 and 7% still seem worth it to me.
I found a McDonald’s franchise cost breakdown where staff wages were 27.5% of the total cost: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/mcdonalds-franchise-cost-vs-profit.html . A 25% increase on those wages, would mean a total cost increase of almost 7%, so it seems like Mr Rodrick is honest with his pricing.
Here in Seattle ($20/hr minimum) an hour of minimum wage is enough to buy A Big Mac meal and still have $6 leftover. In BFE Georgia ($7.25 minimum), you would need to work over an hour. Going to say one is better than the other.
Point taken and I agree but I think $14 is a ripoff for a Big Mac meal.
Now do Denmark lol.
These price increases were either unrelated (there’s a ton of geopolitical reasons the prices of wheat and other food ingredients have risen over the last few years), were purely corporate greed, or perhaps most likely a PR move.
In short, the answer is no. A McDonald’s customer will pay approximately the same amount — give or take a dollar or two — for a Big Mac in Denmark as they would for a Big Mac in the United States. In fact, in many cases you’ll actually pay less for a Big Mac in Denmark than you would in the United States.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/big-mac-cost-denmark/
Isn’t it great having all the knowledge of the internet at your fingertips?
Not only that but they taste better here too.
Padding profits, not covering wages.
CA is a state that really tries to shake the scummy republicans out of its politics and sometimes they win. GGCA.
I just wish they would shake the scummy Democrats out too.
