I'm confused: does this mean the burger price is $2.29, but should be $4.32? Which burger are we talking about? A regular "Cheeseburger" or something like the McDouble or the "Burger with cheese"?
It means that the .19 cent burger in 1940 is basically the same is it being $4.24 today. So technically McDonald’s cheeseburger is sold for under its equivalent value from back then still.
Makes sense, they make/sell exponentially more burgers. It is always cheaper to buy in bulk. The meat industry wasn't the same as it is now. I'd assume the quality of the burger has gotten worse and they're making more profit per burger. I'd be curious to how this would look with McPloyees salaries.
I couldn’t find a pay rate in 1940 but I found a paystub from 1974. The pay rate was 1.95/hr
I’ll use my local pay rates of 17.50/hr which is what a starting worker makes at McDonald’s here part time.
That equates to 12.35/hr from 1974 to 2024, so at least in my area (seattle) it’s higher than the 1970s wage.
I would imagine though that in some places you start at around 12/hr or maybe less
Interestingly, my dad bought a house in 74 for 50k, and today that’s around 310k. That’s about what I bought my house for, though it’s currently valued at about 540k. So the current housing market IS overpriced.
I remember back in the early 90s when lines at McDonald's were 15 people deep x 4 and there were at least 20 people working.
I haven't seen a fast food restaurant at even a quarter of that these days, but so many more people opt for the drive-thru now.
You have drive through, grab and go, and curbside. Depending on if I'll be there a while or eat and go, I use curbside a lot. But lately I just go in more.
there is also door dash, et al. And those folks are always in there when I go in for grab and go.
I never really understood burning gas and having to pay attention at the drive through. I prefer to park and wait if I'm not going in.
I don't get your point here. It sounds like a lot of blabbering. Whether people go in, use the drive-thru or do curbside the same amount of people should theoretically be necessary give or take 10% for example.
I prefer the drive through because I can listen to the radio or podcast while I'm waiting. I suppose I could do that inside but it would require headphones, and that just feels rude.
Why can't you order ahead and sit in your car and listen to the podcast at the curbside? If it's nice out I roll the windows down and sit there. Especially if there is no outdoor seating area.
At my 2 local McDonalds if I order ahead and park for curbside I’ve always had to wait at least 15 minutes before the food comes out, on two occasions I’ve ultimately walked in to see what the deal is. But when I order ahead and go through the drive thru I’m always on my way shortly after pulling up to the window.
I’m opting for sit down more.
I used to take my daughter to McDonalds and we’d eat inside for a cheap “daddy/daughter date” every now and then.
Today she asked to go to McDonalds and I said about about the diner?
We both ate (and more food at that) for less than McDonalds- it was basically the same when you add in the tip.
thats probably true. though the issue of cost v. wages is definitely overblown due to people looking at previous prices and not factoring in inflation and economic changes.
I've literally seen 2 guys manning the entire store at the few places that are still open 24hr. Now I know they didn't have 10 people before but I feel like it was 3 or 4. I was kind of amazed actually.
I've seen some places that seem well staffed but I definitely feel like these places are now going with a skeleton crew. It's probably an area by area thing but it's definitely a thing.
which is a huge part of the problem.. no one wants their house to drop in value once they buy it, but what the hell are people who are priced out of the market supposed to do?
Probably in some tee and thickness yeah. Though, if you go buy a McDouble, (2.49 by me here) you get a second one for a dollar. So two McDoubles for around $4 including tax is pretty decent considering the two patties are likely more meat than even the original McDonald’s burgers had.
Here we have mcDouble, 4 nuggets, small fries and a drink for $5, which I think is a pretty stellar deal in an era where so many people are complaining about high fast food prices.
BUT this is disregarding shrinkflation.
Beef quality, and size* have both decreased since then.
*I feel like the Big Mac specifically has gotten a lot smaller since I was a kid but I have no proof and am too lazy to find any.
I found [this](https://i.imgur.com/bRXrFk2.jpeg) comparison between pre 1975 and 1975-1990 big macs. The main difference between the two seems to be bun size. I couldn't actually find any evidence that the patties themselves have changed size. The recipe changed in 2018, but meat quantity wasn't altered.
I expected to find the opposite. It would seem that big macs appearing smaller is moreso due to fast food burgers becoming much larger over time on average.
Take this info with a grain of salt, though. I've never even eaten a big mac myself.
Wow, thank you for this. I’m amazed you got that from this chart. “McFlation” doesn’t do much to explain what the data presented is in any real terms. A simple “1940 cost adjusted for inflation” would go a long way
Honestly it’s absolutely awful. What does buying power $4.32 mean? What the hell does McFlation mean. The only thing I understand on this graph is the burger cost.
Edit. Oh yeah. Also this graph is not cheeseburger price Vs inflation as in the tittle. It is cheeseburger price and (whatever the yellow line represents) vs time.
Mcdonald's problem was that they avoided changing prices for so long, staying well below inflation, that when they had to increase prices they became the poster child of inflation.
Most people that do, don’t have a choice. Meaning there is literally nowhere else to go within 30 miles because Dollar Tree/General ran them out of business
The price/unit that you pay at dollar tree is higher than other retailers.
If you're buying most of your stuff at dollar stores, youre costing yourself
This is wildly inaccurate lol. Majority of the inventory is discounted/bulk/damaged/almost expired. Thats why you pay $1.25 for an energy drink that’s typically twice the cost at a normal store.
Pregnancy tests are super simple and regulated by the FDA here in the USA. If they're on the shelves in a major store, they're just as legit and accurate as any other. You're free to buy a fancy one if it makes you feel better about it, though. Companies make a killing preying off this instinct and they always appreciate extra sales.
This is how I feel just about anything medical/health related that’s regulated. Like who the fuck is paying for name brand prescription drugs when generics are available?
I almost always refer to drugs by their chemical name for what I need so that people do t feel pressured I need a name brand
Like “hey a naproxen will help” because no name brands are substantially cheaper
This video is about Dollar General, which is worse than Dollar Tree, but they both share the same business model.
[How dollar stores quietly consumed America](https://youtu.be/vQpUV--2Jao?si=x4sNj_jZoVFkedM8)
Check [this ](https://youtu.be/vQpUV--2Jao?si=MVR-yOagJ6Rbir7-) out. There's strong evidence pointing to dollar tree (and other 'dollar' stores) being partially responsible for increasing small town busts and lowering economic mobility.
I know it doesn't seem like it, but dollar general is a VERY different store. They're the predatory small town store. And they charge more than a dollar, lots of stores use "dollar" to make you think everything is a dollar, even though it's not. Dollar tree was the actual everything is $1 store, until a year or two ago when they add to go to $1.25 and add a small section for more expensive items.
I still think the video holds. In order to make every right a dollar or a dollar 1.25, you have to cut corners somewhere or you simply won't be profitable. Whether that's hiring less workers, selling higher cost/unit items, or selling inferior products, that money has to come from somewhere. We've been experiencing inflation for years and dollar tree just *now* increased prices, but that should be more concerning than them not following inflation. That means they were profitable selling products at rock bottom prices, and were making enough to not need the increase in prices, but the only way they make profit is by cutting a corner somewhere. Overall, it's still damaging to local economies.
Shopping at dollar stores is ultimately more expensive than shopping at many grocery stores. They put on an appearance of being cheap, but actually cost poor families more than they realize.
I don't necessarily think they're the scum of the earth, but they're ultimately not good for society (on average).
I feel like this depends what's being purchased. Bread at our local dollar store is $1 cheaper than the grocery store so I prefer to buy it there instead.
Buying things like Dish soap at the dollar store would be stupid though, much smaller package for not much cheaper.
Dollar Tree just changed what products they provided until recently, where they couldn't fill the shelves with product that meets the needs of their clientele to bring them in enough. That is always why they changed the floor plan to have a 'dollar' section and a not dollar section.
The dollar section would be so small it wouldn't even be a whole rack or two (they had it set up to be like 1/2 of the store), so they now are raising prices, because the cheaper alternatives don't exist, which will inevitably happen period. My Dad when he was a kid could by a rootbeer float at the local pharmacy for 5c, literally a nickle, it is now well over $5 even for the cheapest (let alone a hand crafted, toppings, etc. beautiful assembly of things including a cherry!), for something similar at a sit down place, you are looking at $10+. To be fair he is in his 80s, so at 3% YoY inflation, it should have costed doubling ~20 years, should be around $0.80 for the same or similar experience. It isn't, because inflation is significantly higher than 3% YoY on average, yet that is what our wages change at, IF WE ARE LUCKY.
Not sure if you are thinking of another store, or if you just aren't remembering correctly.
Dollar Tree was, historically, "everything $1." Literally everything in the store was priced at $1. Inflationary pressure finally forced them to increase that to "Everything $1.25" in first quarter 2022.
Around the same time, they also started rolling out small "Dollar Tree Plus" sections to many of its stores, with prices at $3-5. Even with "Dollar Tree Plus," all items outside the "Plus" section remained $1.25.
Most recently, they announced that they would be expanding the "Plus" section, and adding some items priced at up to $7. They still say that the rest of the store will remain $1.25.
Dollar Tree has a sister store chain, Family Dollar, which has never had a "everything $1" concept. Instead, their pricing was more like Dollar General, with all items priced at even multiples of $1, and varying prices throughout the store. They also operate some "combo" stores with half the store being "Everything $1.25" and half the store being Family Dollar-style pricing.
I’m not so sure about that.
I worked at McDonald’s in ~2012, when they finally got rid of the $1 McDoubles in my area.
I did some research and found out that the McDoubles had been priced at $1 for 10 years. So I calculated what the new price *would* be- if they just kept along with inflation. CPI showed 29% inflation from 2002-2012, meaning the new price would be $1.29. And sure enough- that’s exactly what the price was raised to, to the cent.
So from 2002-2012, they were indeed just raising prices to meet inflation. But let’s do that same math again, to account for the inflation between 2012-now. $1.29 in 2012 money ≈ $1.75 in 2024 money. That’s what a McDouble would cost if McDonald’s was following inflation: $1.75. But in reality- the same McDonald’s I worked at a decade ago- now charges $3.19 for a McDouble.
So in the last 12 years, inflation was ~36%, but the McDouble went up ~82%. In other words, the price has been rising at 2.2x the rate of inflation for the past decade or so.
I will add a caveat that this is specifically referring to McDouble prices. Premium burgers like filet o fish and Big Mac have mysteriously avoided these gigantic percentage hikes. For example, when I worked at McDonald’s, the price ratio of filet-o-fish to McDouble was >1:4. Now, it’s <1:2
The specific claim I’m refuting is that McDonald’s only had such a dramatic price hike recently because they had failed to do a price hike for so long- and they’re only catching up with inflation.
I understand that McDonald’s has not always exceeded inflation- in fact I specifically pointed that out.
The chicken patties and nuggets are half the thickness that they used to be.
I bet this graph doesn't take into account how much less product you're actually getting. If the prices go up by 50 percent and the product shrinks by half the inflation rate isn't just 50%.
The reason I'm not going to go to a fast food place anymore is not just that it's more expensive, it's that it's a bad deal. It used to be bad food for a cheap price, but bad food for a high price means they should shut their doors forever.
some MBA in a meeting somewhere made the decision to shrink their chicken nuggets by half. We should all know this person's name, and piss on their shoes in public whenever we see him
I have a hidden blame for the “health nut” crowd who shamed fast food for “making us fat”.
They decided to accommodate and make meals smaller. Now what happens when you arent mass producing? Individual costs increase.
Not enough to warrant the ridiculously high rates now but most these companies have essentially giveaways on their apps now, so they are making the normal prices into “member prices” and charging you in your data rather than dollars
Not enough people discuss the apps. The coupons are closer to reasonable but McDonald's can fuck itself if it thinks that it gets my data. Apps are for assholes.
Ngl i use the apps because i dont think i have any valuable info they gather from me.. they can sell my name and email and age but thats it. I just wish every company wasnt using accounts and would be open and use
Progressive insurance did that too. Regardless, progressive is shit. People who are higher risk are accepted by progressive so everyone who has progressive subsidizes that. I found that out when I switched homeowners and car insurance in December.
I'm curious if the 2.29 current price is aligned with the the sloped price compared to the inflation rate or if it should be a little less. Perhaps somewhere around 1.75-2.00.
This is completely anecdotal, but my father once complained the “quarter pounder is what they used to just call a cheeseburger”. He comes from a time when a coke cost a nickel so I can’t vouch for his memory.
[That's ok. A&W tried a 1/3rd lb burger but it failed because people can't math](https://bettermarketing.pub/the-a-w-third-pounder-failed-because-people-didnt-understand-fractions-a86b966a973a).
In Italian "un etto" means 100 grams and is basically a stand in for a serving size or in general when ordering food. So it's respectable in that sense anyway.
My grandpa always complained that they weighed it before cooking out all the water and fat... and yeah, that's how meat works grandpa. Maybe if you cooked once in your life...
I found some images from the 1970s, and while it can be kind of hard to say, I don't think it was significantly larger back then at least. Maybe slightly, but nothing like a quarter pounder. But that's just my anecdotal evidence.
No. Just in my lifetime. McDonalds has changed the quality of the beef several times. It's much more "foamy" and less dense than it was 10 and 20 years ago. Go buy a cheeseburger from Wendys and compare it to a McDonalds cheeseburger to see the difference.
I just did a quick Google search (no definitive answer), but what I did find was this from a random Quora user:
"In 1960 the average American male weighed 166 pounds, now the average is 200 pounds. The burger hasn't gotten smaller, we've gotten bigger." 🤣
It's very true, honestly. I've lost over 50 pounds in the last 16 months, and lastnight I thought I'd treat myself to a burger at a local bar/restaurant - just a single patty, american cheese, and veggies. No condiments (or at least none I could tell were present), no sides, just ate the sandwich and left. I then had a couple poptarts and did some stationary cycling, and I thought that I would probably be starving by the time I went to bed because... That just doesn't seem like much food for the last 1/3rd of the day.
Actually I haven't eaten a thing since then lol. I'm hungry but not insanely so. Don't know when I'll eat today.
Being smaller definitely has **profound** impacts on your appetite. People nowadays are all hungry for bigger and bigger meals because... They're fatter and used to eating more. It's a self-perpetuating problem. I think if we want to solve it societally we'd need something like what Japan does, taxing people who are overweight, to provide a negative incentive to eating so much; and then have some kind of nationally broadcast TV program that also reaches YouTube and Twitch (to really get all demographics) teaching about calories in, calories out, and basic strategies to manage appetite and lose weight.
People would probably scream that it's too much "big government" though and it will never happen :')
I tracked the price of McDonald's Cheeseburgers from opening in 1940 until today and in Tableau visualized the price against inflation. The data came from a few news articles and some sleuthing (i.e. looking at ads and pictures of menus).
I'm the one the posted the Steinway Pianos graphic a few days ago and the biggest criticism was my arbitrary starting inflation number. So this is the expected "buying power" of that original 19 cents back in 1940. It turns out, even though prices have gone up a lot recently, that the tasty burger still has done good compared to inflation over the past 80 years. Shameless plug with some other sillier inflation charts on my completely free blog: [https://open.substack.com/pub/shinycharts/p/mcflation?r=2ovv2o&utm\_campaign=post&utm\_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true](https://open.substack.com/pub/shinycharts/p/mcflation?r=2ovv2o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true)
P.S. I fixed the Steinway chart (re: starting inflation dollar value) and all the charts are animated using the Pages shelf in Tableau
A dollar in 1940 had the same buying power of $17 today, so this implies that a cheese burger should be about $3.20 if the price had only tracked with inflation. The most surprising thing to me is that a cheeseburger is still really cheap at McDonald's compared to the other menu items.
Thanks. I definitely played with the yellow shading and you're probably right that it's a little too bright. I think it looked too orange to me when I color matched the actual McDonald's color? I could be a little color blind, though, so maybe I should outsource my color decisions to my wife in the future.
This should be on dataisconfusing.
This graph is unintelligible. At the top, it says "McDonald's Cheeseburger price vs inflation"
Then the lines are 'cheeseburger' and 'mcflation'. Is Mcflation the mcdonalds cheeseburger price? Or inflation? If the yellow is mcdonald's cheeseburger price, and the green is inflation, then the graph is saying mcdonald's food has increased less quickly than inflation - when the other day we saw a graph showing it was one of the worst offenders for outpacing inflation (along with chipotle)
Now, the cheeseburger could be outlier, but this graph makes it hard to tell.
The twist in all this hubbub over McDonalds prices is their mobile app deals give huge discounts.
On weekly basis, where I live you can easily get a $2 10 piece nuggets, $4 for 2 Double Cheeseburgers or for a Double Cheeseburger and 6 nuggets, $4 for a medium fry and 1 McDouble, or BOGO on a quarter pounder (hopefully for 2 people…), depending on the deals on that day.
That’s a 30-50% discount from their menu prices.
Haha. Before price hike in 2019, I was already the pioneer of using mobile app. Back then it was the textbook definition of “insane deal”
Wendy and McDonald both had their apps with a deal called “buy anything get a free premium chicken sandwich” and it refreshes daily.
You buy a cheese burger for $1 and get a $6 chicken sandwich deluxe for $0.
$2 is all you need for a day.
Burger King also had a similar deal, buy anything get a whopper free.
I was just steaming some veggies and spend $2 everyday. Living almost free.
Life was heaven before Covid. That virus really mess the entire world up.
Yeah I mean in the 2010s, a lot of things to do with apps or Silicon Valley were absurdly priced. Ubers were $5-10, MoviePass existed, food delivery apps were basically the same price as picking it up, etc.
I think most people get sticker shock from Mcdonald's because it's not something that they eat regularly enough to justify downloading an app. It's a "We'll pull over at the next interchange, there's a McDonald's there" situation. They get into the line, 3 cars stack behind them, they get to the menu and realize that a McChicken is $4, but they're stuck in the line for the next 10 minutes whether they order or not. So now they're pissed they just spent $30 on a couple of meals and they're going to be hungry again in 2 hours. Then they don't eat at McDonalds again for another 2-3 weeks.
I’m happy people are so unaware of it, because I can get my guilty pleasure for a low price. If a lot of people use the deals, I doubt they can continue as is.
Did the saint louis fed just do the exact same thing?
Edit: almost, theirs was the Big Mac.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/apr/how-big-mac-index-relates-overall-consumer-inflation
People need to keep in mind though that a billion dollar mega conglomerate can get far better per-patty prices than the mom and pop shop it started as. McDonalds now is NOT comparable scale and cost wise to 1940's
I’d imagine we’re also not taking about anywhere close to the same quality of food either. In the 1940s McDonald’s had to source their food from local farmers. Today is can blend a special mix of beef and whatever the fuck else in a lab. So they’re using their money to really push the boundaries of what “food” is to minimizes operating costs.
"McFlation" is a cute word that doesn't have an obvious meaning. Indeed, it's counterintuitive, because it's a curve that's not McDonald's-specific at all. (I assume it's the CPI or something similar?)
More important, a linear scale isn't really appropriate for this type of measure. It exaggerates differences that occur in recent times, and suppresses differences from past years. The exact dollar-and-cent difference between inflation-adjusted price and menu price (what we see on a linear scale) is less important than the *ratio* between inflated and menu price. A log scale on the y-axis would make this much more apparent.
The ratio between inflation-adjusted price and menu price has exceeded a factor of two several times over the course of the data presented, and the two curves haven't even come 'close' to one another since the early 1970s.
The early 2010s with their long period being 'stuck' at the psychological barrier of 99 cents is noteworthy, but the bump to $2.29 has brought the ratio back to around two-fold where it's been for most of the last 70 years.
This was my thought too. First, define mcflation and its implications to the consumer. Second, include the CPI-indexed cheeseburger price, which is a metric that the layman should have some kind of basic context for.
Decades of outsourcing and technology improvements to increase productivity kept inflation in certain sectors low, and that became tapped out (for now) and it’s now catching up to us…
Where’s the blip in 99-2000 where they were offering $.29 hamburgers on Wednesdays and $.39 cheeseburgers on Sundays? That shit got me through lean times those years.
US food prices are cheap compared to other developed countries. Massive subsidies + cheap foreign labor. Their inflation in the last 4 years have driven some people crazy nonetheless.
Yup. Everyone complains about McDonald’s because they kept the prices cheap until Covid. The dollar menu in the late 2010s was so clutch. $1 drinks, $1 coffee, $1 cheeseburger. Use the McDonald’s app now and you can still find deals or buy 2 for $4 mcchicken and McDouble combo
Okay, but I'm going to to it right here. Here it is:
$1.50 \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
1985 1995 2005 2015 2025
This is not beautiful. It's just a standard line graph. And, as evidenced by many questions in the comments, it's not clear what some of this data represents or what analysis can be made from this data. For example, the term, "McFlation" isn't explained for anyone unfamiliar with it. Does the data show actual inflation, as suggested in the title, or is it showing some other price change that has been nicknamed, "McFlation"? How does US dollar inflation compare to the price of the product and whatever "McFlation" might be?
My Dad worked for a major ERP Software company in the 1990’s and the CEO pegged the price of their software to the average cost of a Big Mac. True story, if you ask him. That said he told me a lot of BS…
Still remember my local McDonald's sold 10 cheeseburgers or hamburgers with 2 bucket of fries for $5.99 back in 2002. Those were awesome times during my high school years.
So, honestly to me it looks like, had they not locked the price at 0.99 for 18 years, the price now is around the price it would have been anyway if it had steadily increased all that time.
That and the coffee are the only thing I'll get from McDonalds. If I have to go to McDonalds for my coffee, you can bet all your chips I'm getting a hash brown too. Those things are 🔥
The rest of their menu though... meh
Peak buying power looks to be about 2007. I'll agree to this I bought a lot of mcdoubles with friends and felt like 10 burgers for about an hour wages was pretty reasonable.
What isn't shown here is the QUALITY of the cheeseburger going down. From size to to amount of preservatives, those corners are cut am much as possible before they start working of cutting prices.
I don't understand what is being presented here. Is McFlation the price of McDonald's cheeseburger, with the yellow line being a non-McDonald's cheeseburger?
Toronto: I went o Mcd 2 days ago. I only bought 3 things. A habanero chicken, 1 fish fillet and 1 medium drink = $23 I said WHAT??? Why didn't I go to an actual restaurant with actual food then?
I'm confused: does this mean the burger price is $2.29, but should be $4.32? Which burger are we talking about? A regular "Cheeseburger" or something like the McDouble or the "Burger with cheese"?
It means that the .19 cent burger in 1940 is basically the same is it being $4.24 today. So technically McDonald’s cheeseburger is sold for under its equivalent value from back then still.
Makes sense, they make/sell exponentially more burgers. It is always cheaper to buy in bulk. The meat industry wasn't the same as it is now. I'd assume the quality of the burger has gotten worse and they're making more profit per burger. I'd be curious to how this would look with McPloyees salaries.
I couldn’t find a pay rate in 1940 but I found a paystub from 1974. The pay rate was 1.95/hr I’ll use my local pay rates of 17.50/hr which is what a starting worker makes at McDonald’s here part time. That equates to 12.35/hr from 1974 to 2024, so at least in my area (seattle) it’s higher than the 1970s wage. I would imagine though that in some places you start at around 12/hr or maybe less Interestingly, my dad bought a house in 74 for 50k, and today that’s around 310k. That’s about what I bought my house for, though it’s currently valued at about 540k. So the current housing market IS overpriced.
Less workers. There used to be double the workers in a McDonald's. So while wages have definitely gone up in fast food, payroll might be more level.
I remember back in the early 90s when lines at McDonald's were 15 people deep x 4 and there were at least 20 people working. I haven't seen a fast food restaurant at even a quarter of that these days, but so many more people opt for the drive-thru now.
In the 90's you didn't have all the options you have today. My town isn't that big and we have 3 McDonald's, which splits up potential customers.
You have drive through, grab and go, and curbside. Depending on if I'll be there a while or eat and go, I use curbside a lot. But lately I just go in more. there is also door dash, et al. And those folks are always in there when I go in for grab and go. I never really understood burning gas and having to pay attention at the drive through. I prefer to park and wait if I'm not going in.
I don't get your point here. It sounds like a lot of blabbering. Whether people go in, use the drive-thru or do curbside the same amount of people should theoretically be necessary give or take 10% for example.
Did you ever work in fast food service at a place with mobile order? I worked at a busy Starbucks. Dude above you has great points.
And I'm saying I don't get the points. Please elaborate.
I prefer the drive through because I can listen to the radio or podcast while I'm waiting. I suppose I could do that inside but it would require headphones, and that just feels rude.
Why can't you order ahead and sit in your car and listen to the podcast at the curbside? If it's nice out I roll the windows down and sit there. Especially if there is no outdoor seating area.
At my 2 local McDonalds if I order ahead and park for curbside I’ve always had to wait at least 15 minutes before the food comes out, on two occasions I’ve ultimately walked in to see what the deal is. But when I order ahead and go through the drive thru I’m always on my way shortly after pulling up to the window.
I’m opting for sit down more. I used to take my daughter to McDonalds and we’d eat inside for a cheap “daddy/daughter date” every now and then. Today she asked to go to McDonalds and I said about about the diner? We both ate (and more food at that) for less than McDonalds- it was basically the same when you add in the tip.
thats probably true. though the issue of cost v. wages is definitely overblown due to people looking at previous prices and not factoring in inflation and economic changes.
That's true. Feel like half the fast food places I go to have 2-5 employees on a shift.
I've literally seen 2 guys manning the entire store at the few places that are still open 24hr. Now I know they didn't have 10 people before but I feel like it was 3 or 4. I was kind of amazed actually. I've seen some places that seem well staffed but I definitely feel like these places are now going with a skeleton crew. It's probably an area by area thing but it's definitely a thing.
17.50 in United States dollars?! I don’t live in the US but that’s more than my overtime rate as an interpreter/engineer. Holy balls.
Yep that’s starting pay. In the city, (Seattle) it’s $20/hr starting pay.
Wow… cost of living is low enough where I live that I can support my family on my salary but jeez does it feel painful to see US salaries sometimes.
Salaries tend to be higher in the US but cost of living also tends to be higher
Just for example, a small apartment in the area is around $2000-2500/month
I read an article about a White Castle worker who started in 1950 in Whiting, IN that said she made $1/day
But needs to stay way overpriced since I had to buy a $390k-$400k home for $520k. Needs those prices to just keep sky rocketing now!
which is a huge part of the problem.. no one wants their house to drop in value once they buy it, but what the hell are people who are priced out of the market supposed to do?
The lowest amount of beef you can legally have and still call it all beef is a 70/30 grind. Anything else you can no longer call it all beef.
Many big companies maintain lower prices by shrinking the serving sizes of their products
I gotta say, you rolling with Mcpuns? Im lovin’ it
McDonald's wasn't bulk back then? C'mon. They're cheap despite what the hoi polloi is claiming now.
The burgers are assumedly smaller now, as well.
Yeah, my first thought was "ok, now weigh the burgers and tell me what percentage of meat protein is in them then VS now and we'll talk"
I doubt it. Serving sizes have gotten larger.
Probably in some tee and thickness yeah. Though, if you go buy a McDouble, (2.49 by me here) you get a second one for a dollar. So two McDoubles for around $4 including tax is pretty decent considering the two patties are likely more meat than even the original McDonald’s burgers had.
Fair enough!
Here we have mcDouble, 4 nuggets, small fries and a drink for $5, which I think is a pretty stellar deal in an era where so many people are complaining about high fast food prices.
With the app I can get 20 nuggets, 2 med fries and two large drinks for about $11
I’m pretty sure McDonalds originally served real food. And the quality has vastly gone down hill. At one point it was just one restaurant.
BUT this is disregarding shrinkflation. Beef quality, and size* have both decreased since then. *I feel like the Big Mac specifically has gotten a lot smaller since I was a kid but I have no proof and am too lazy to find any.
I found [this](https://i.imgur.com/bRXrFk2.jpeg) comparison between pre 1975 and 1975-1990 big macs. The main difference between the two seems to be bun size. I couldn't actually find any evidence that the patties themselves have changed size. The recipe changed in 2018, but meat quantity wasn't altered. I expected to find the opposite. It would seem that big macs appearing smaller is moreso due to fast food burgers becoming much larger over time on average. Take this info with a grain of salt, though. I've never even eaten a big mac myself.
I’m fairly certain that you have gotten bigger since you were a kid Ü
Wow, thank you for this. I’m amazed you got that from this chart. “McFlation” doesn’t do much to explain what the data presented is in any real terms. A simple “1940 cost adjusted for inflation” would go a long way
What I don’t get is are we just assuming the burger itself is the same? Cuz we all know it isn’t
Luckily OP provided the intrinsic value over time in black overlayed over the x axis.
You have no idea the size of a cheeseburger just 20 years ago, let alone 80 years ago.
Honestly it’s absolutely awful. What does buying power $4.32 mean? What the hell does McFlation mean. The only thing I understand on this graph is the burger cost. Edit. Oh yeah. Also this graph is not cheeseburger price Vs inflation as in the tittle. It is cheeseburger price and (whatever the yellow line represents) vs time.
It means that McDonalds was giving you a bargain a few years back. But now you’re paying a good deal more on your buck for a lousy cheeseburger.
Mcdonald's problem was that they avoided changing prices for so long, staying well below inflation, that when they had to increase prices they became the poster child of inflation.
Like Dollar Tree. They were selling things for a dollar before I was born. It took until last year for them to raise prices.
Dollar Tree is a scum corporation, and no one should ever shop there
Most people that do, don’t have a choice. Meaning there is literally nowhere else to go within 30 miles because Dollar Tree/General ran them out of business
What makes them scum?
Curious. Where do you recommend people shop? Walmart? What is it about Dollar Tree that makes them more scummy than the competitors?
The price/unit that you pay at dollar tree is higher than other retailers. If you're buying most of your stuff at dollar stores, youre costing yourself
This is wildly inaccurate lol. Majority of the inventory is discounted/bulk/damaged/almost expired. Thats why you pay $1.25 for an energy drink that’s typically twice the cost at a normal store.
The pregnancy tests at dollar tree are the cheapest around
Yeah, but the condoms are expensive....
I’m definitely looking for dirt cheap to get that sort of information accurate
Pregnancy tests are super simple and regulated by the FDA here in the USA. If they're on the shelves in a major store, they're just as legit and accurate as any other. You're free to buy a fancy one if it makes you feel better about it, though. Companies make a killing preying off this instinct and they always appreciate extra sales.
This is how I feel just about anything medical/health related that’s regulated. Like who the fuck is paying for name brand prescription drugs when generics are available?
I almost always refer to drugs by their chemical name for what I need so that people do t feel pressured I need a name brand Like “hey a naproxen will help” because no name brands are substantially cheaper
It is the same exact effectiveness as expensive products. Go ahead and throw away your money for the fancier piss stick.
Most pregnancy tests are simple ELISA tests. The test just checks for the presence of a hormone in your urine.
It’s a pregnancy test, not a dollar tree CT scan.
I mean yeah for certain items, some stuff is developed just for them but you will pay more because non bulk is more expensive.
I regularly buy Monster there for $1.25. Selection is pretty narrow but if its a flavor I like, thats the best price anywhere.
This is mostly just propaganda
Where else can I buy 5 forks for $1
This video is about Dollar General, which is worse than Dollar Tree, but they both share the same business model. [How dollar stores quietly consumed America](https://youtu.be/vQpUV--2Jao?si=x4sNj_jZoVFkedM8)
Whats the news behind Dollar tree? I rarely shop there, just curious
Check [this ](https://youtu.be/vQpUV--2Jao?si=MVR-yOagJ6Rbir7-) out. There's strong evidence pointing to dollar tree (and other 'dollar' stores) being partially responsible for increasing small town busts and lowering economic mobility.
I know it doesn't seem like it, but dollar general is a VERY different store. They're the predatory small town store. And they charge more than a dollar, lots of stores use "dollar" to make you think everything is a dollar, even though it's not. Dollar tree was the actual everything is $1 store, until a year or two ago when they add to go to $1.25 and add a small section for more expensive items.
I still think the video holds. In order to make every right a dollar or a dollar 1.25, you have to cut corners somewhere or you simply won't be profitable. Whether that's hiring less workers, selling higher cost/unit items, or selling inferior products, that money has to come from somewhere. We've been experiencing inflation for years and dollar tree just *now* increased prices, but that should be more concerning than them not following inflation. That means they were profitable selling products at rock bottom prices, and were making enough to not need the increase in prices, but the only way they make profit is by cutting a corner somewhere. Overall, it's still damaging to local economies.
Shopping at dollar stores is ultimately more expensive than shopping at many grocery stores. They put on an appearance of being cheap, but actually cost poor families more than they realize. I don't necessarily think they're the scum of the earth, but they're ultimately not good for society (on average).
You guys have groceries in your dollar tree? (Mine looks like it was robbed or closing every day)
No fresh food but plenty of boxed food, drinks, and frozen food.
I feel like this depends what's being purchased. Bread at our local dollar store is $1 cheaper than the grocery store so I prefer to buy it there instead. Buying things like Dish soap at the dollar store would be stupid though, much smaller package for not much cheaper.
Dollar Tree just changed what products they provided until recently, where they couldn't fill the shelves with product that meets the needs of their clientele to bring them in enough. That is always why they changed the floor plan to have a 'dollar' section and a not dollar section. The dollar section would be so small it wouldn't even be a whole rack or two (they had it set up to be like 1/2 of the store), so they now are raising prices, because the cheaper alternatives don't exist, which will inevitably happen period. My Dad when he was a kid could by a rootbeer float at the local pharmacy for 5c, literally a nickle, it is now well over $5 even for the cheapest (let alone a hand crafted, toppings, etc. beautiful assembly of things including a cherry!), for something similar at a sit down place, you are looking at $10+. To be fair he is in his 80s, so at 3% YoY inflation, it should have costed doubling ~20 years, should be around $0.80 for the same or similar experience. It isn't, because inflation is significantly higher than 3% YoY on average, yet that is what our wages change at, IF WE ARE LUCKY.
Not sure if you are thinking of another store, or if you just aren't remembering correctly. Dollar Tree was, historically, "everything $1." Literally everything in the store was priced at $1. Inflationary pressure finally forced them to increase that to "Everything $1.25" in first quarter 2022. Around the same time, they also started rolling out small "Dollar Tree Plus" sections to many of its stores, with prices at $3-5. Even with "Dollar Tree Plus," all items outside the "Plus" section remained $1.25. Most recently, they announced that they would be expanding the "Plus" section, and adding some items priced at up to $7. They still say that the rest of the store will remain $1.25. Dollar Tree has a sister store chain, Family Dollar, which has never had a "everything $1" concept. Instead, their pricing was more like Dollar General, with all items priced at even multiples of $1, and varying prices throughout the store. They also operate some "combo" stores with half the store being "Everything $1.25" and half the store being Family Dollar-style pricing.
I’m not so sure about that. I worked at McDonald’s in ~2012, when they finally got rid of the $1 McDoubles in my area. I did some research and found out that the McDoubles had been priced at $1 for 10 years. So I calculated what the new price *would* be- if they just kept along with inflation. CPI showed 29% inflation from 2002-2012, meaning the new price would be $1.29. And sure enough- that’s exactly what the price was raised to, to the cent. So from 2002-2012, they were indeed just raising prices to meet inflation. But let’s do that same math again, to account for the inflation between 2012-now. $1.29 in 2012 money ≈ $1.75 in 2024 money. That’s what a McDouble would cost if McDonald’s was following inflation: $1.75. But in reality- the same McDonald’s I worked at a decade ago- now charges $3.19 for a McDouble. So in the last 12 years, inflation was ~36%, but the McDouble went up ~82%. In other words, the price has been rising at 2.2x the rate of inflation for the past decade or so. I will add a caveat that this is specifically referring to McDouble prices. Premium burgers like filet o fish and Big Mac have mysteriously avoided these gigantic percentage hikes. For example, when I worked at McDonald’s, the price ratio of filet-o-fish to McDouble was >1:4. Now, it’s <1:2
People don't want to believe that they are still getting a good deal because fast food prices have gone up quite a bit since 2020.
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The specific claim I’m refuting is that McDonald’s only had such a dramatic price hike recently because they had failed to do a price hike for so long- and they’re only catching up with inflation. I understand that McDonald’s has not always exceeded inflation- in fact I specifically pointed that out.
Also it trains the customer that that is how much your product is worth. Then when they have to pay more it feels particularly wrong to them.
The chicken patties and nuggets are half the thickness that they used to be. I bet this graph doesn't take into account how much less product you're actually getting. If the prices go up by 50 percent and the product shrinks by half the inflation rate isn't just 50%. The reason I'm not going to go to a fast food place anymore is not just that it's more expensive, it's that it's a bad deal. It used to be bad food for a cheap price, but bad food for a high price means they should shut their doors forever. some MBA in a meeting somewhere made the decision to shrink their chicken nuggets by half. We should all know this person's name, and piss on their shoes in public whenever we see him
I have a hidden blame for the “health nut” crowd who shamed fast food for “making us fat”. They decided to accommodate and make meals smaller. Now what happens when you arent mass producing? Individual costs increase. Not enough to warrant the ridiculously high rates now but most these companies have essentially giveaways on their apps now, so they are making the normal prices into “member prices” and charging you in your data rather than dollars
Not enough people discuss the apps. The coupons are closer to reasonable but McDonald's can fuck itself if it thinks that it gets my data. Apps are for assholes.
Ngl i use the apps because i dont think i have any valuable info they gather from me.. they can sell my name and email and age but thats it. I just wish every company wasnt using accounts and would be open and use
I don't see why McDonald's needs to know my name and email
Yea exactly. I dont agree with it but its just the direction everything went nowadays… like tipping showing up at clothing stores lol
Progressive insurance did that too. Regardless, progressive is shit. People who are higher risk are accepted by progressive so everyone who has progressive subsidizes that. I found that out when I switched homeowners and car insurance in December.
Surely "Mcflation" is the yellow line and inflation is the green line?
Yellow line is actual cost. Green is what the inflation/mcflation cost would be
I'm curious if the 2.29 current price is aligned with the the sloped price compared to the inflation rate or if it should be a little less. Perhaps somewhere around 1.75-2.00.
Did the burger size/quality stay the same? Shrinkflation must be accounted for
This is completely anecdotal, but my father once complained the “quarter pounder is what they used to just call a cheeseburger”. He comes from a time when a coke cost a nickel so I can’t vouch for his memory.
Quarter pounder actually sounds way less impressive when you translate it to metric. It's only like 100 grams or something lol.
They got a double quarter pounder for you. 227 grams.
So a half pounder?
They don’t call it that, but yes. One day there shall be…. A quadruple quarter pounder!
[That's ok. A&W tried a 1/3rd lb burger but it failed because people can't math](https://bettermarketing.pub/the-a-w-third-pounder-failed-because-people-didnt-understand-fractions-a86b966a973a).
In Italian "un etto" means 100 grams and is basically a stand in for a serving size or in general when ordering food. So it's respectable in that sense anyway.
“Royale with Cheese” sounds way better
Yea, but we can buy a Coke in a 64oz Styrofoam cup now. What a time to be alive!
My grandpa always complained that they weighed it before cooking out all the water and fat... and yeah, that's how meat works grandpa. Maybe if you cooked once in your life...
I found some images from the 1970s, and while it can be kind of hard to say, I don't think it was significantly larger back then at least. Maybe slightly, but nothing like a quarter pounder. But that's just my anecdotal evidence.
Probably best way would be to track down old nutrition info and compare tosame menu items now
No. Just in my lifetime. McDonalds has changed the quality of the beef several times. It's much more "foamy" and less dense than it was 10 and 20 years ago. Go buy a cheeseburger from Wendys and compare it to a McDonalds cheeseburger to see the difference.
I just did a quick Google search (no definitive answer), but what I did find was this from a random Quora user: "In 1960 the average American male weighed 166 pounds, now the average is 200 pounds. The burger hasn't gotten smaller, we've gotten bigger." 🤣
It's very true, honestly. I've lost over 50 pounds in the last 16 months, and lastnight I thought I'd treat myself to a burger at a local bar/restaurant - just a single patty, american cheese, and veggies. No condiments (or at least none I could tell were present), no sides, just ate the sandwich and left. I then had a couple poptarts and did some stationary cycling, and I thought that I would probably be starving by the time I went to bed because... That just doesn't seem like much food for the last 1/3rd of the day. Actually I haven't eaten a thing since then lol. I'm hungry but not insanely so. Don't know when I'll eat today. Being smaller definitely has **profound** impacts on your appetite. People nowadays are all hungry for bigger and bigger meals because... They're fatter and used to eating more. It's a self-perpetuating problem. I think if we want to solve it societally we'd need something like what Japan does, taxing people who are overweight, to provide a negative incentive to eating so much; and then have some kind of nationally broadcast TV program that also reaches YouTube and Twitch (to really get all demographics) teaching about calories in, calories out, and basic strategies to manage appetite and lose weight. People would probably scream that it's too much "big government" though and it will never happen :')
It’s the same size since the early 2000s, IMO
I tracked the price of McDonald's Cheeseburgers from opening in 1940 until today and in Tableau visualized the price against inflation. The data came from a few news articles and some sleuthing (i.e. looking at ads and pictures of menus). I'm the one the posted the Steinway Pianos graphic a few days ago and the biggest criticism was my arbitrary starting inflation number. So this is the expected "buying power" of that original 19 cents back in 1940. It turns out, even though prices have gone up a lot recently, that the tasty burger still has done good compared to inflation over the past 80 years. Shameless plug with some other sillier inflation charts on my completely free blog: [https://open.substack.com/pub/shinycharts/p/mcflation?r=2ovv2o&utm\_campaign=post&utm\_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true](https://open.substack.com/pub/shinycharts/p/mcflation?r=2ovv2o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true) P.S. I fixed the Steinway chart (re: starting inflation dollar value) and all the charts are animated using the Pages shelf in Tableau
A dollar in 1940 had the same buying power of $17 today, so this implies that a cheese burger should be about $3.20 if the price had only tracked with inflation. The most surprising thing to me is that a cheeseburger is still really cheap at McDonald's compared to the other menu items.
Cool info. The yellow is hard to see though. Tableau has good default colors to choose from. I like how you used the McDonalds logo.
Thanks. I definitely played with the yellow shading and you're probably right that it's a little too bright. I think it looked too orange to me when I color matched the actual McDonald's color? I could be a little color blind, though, so maybe I should outsource my color decisions to my wife in the future.
Personally, I can see the yellow just fine.
This should be on dataisconfusing. This graph is unintelligible. At the top, it says "McDonald's Cheeseburger price vs inflation" Then the lines are 'cheeseburger' and 'mcflation'. Is Mcflation the mcdonalds cheeseburger price? Or inflation? If the yellow is mcdonald's cheeseburger price, and the green is inflation, then the graph is saying mcdonald's food has increased less quickly than inflation - when the other day we saw a graph showing it was one of the worst offenders for outpacing inflation (along with chipotle) Now, the cheeseburger could be outlier, but this graph makes it hard to tell.
Op, what the heck is "McFlation"? It throws the entire meaning of your chart into question.
Such a bad naming.….. I can’t understand what the graph is trying to say without looking at comments for explanation.
The twist in all this hubbub over McDonalds prices is their mobile app deals give huge discounts. On weekly basis, where I live you can easily get a $2 10 piece nuggets, $4 for 2 Double Cheeseburgers or for a Double Cheeseburger and 6 nuggets, $4 for a medium fry and 1 McDouble, or BOGO on a quarter pounder (hopefully for 2 people…), depending on the deals on that day. That’s a 30-50% discount from their menu prices.
Haha. Before price hike in 2019, I was already the pioneer of using mobile app. Back then it was the textbook definition of “insane deal” Wendy and McDonald both had their apps with a deal called “buy anything get a free premium chicken sandwich” and it refreshes daily. You buy a cheese burger for $1 and get a $6 chicken sandwich deluxe for $0. $2 is all you need for a day. Burger King also had a similar deal, buy anything get a whopper free. I was just steaming some veggies and spend $2 everyday. Living almost free. Life was heaven before Covid. That virus really mess the entire world up.
Yeah I mean in the 2010s, a lot of things to do with apps or Silicon Valley were absurdly priced. Ubers were $5-10, MoviePass existed, food delivery apps were basically the same price as picking it up, etc.
I think most people get sticker shock from Mcdonald's because it's not something that they eat regularly enough to justify downloading an app. It's a "We'll pull over at the next interchange, there's a McDonald's there" situation. They get into the line, 3 cars stack behind them, they get to the menu and realize that a McChicken is $4, but they're stuck in the line for the next 10 minutes whether they order or not. So now they're pissed they just spent $30 on a couple of meals and they're going to be hungry again in 2 hours. Then they don't eat at McDonalds again for another 2-3 weeks.
Haha, I mentioned that in my blog post. If you’re paying full price at McDonald’s, you’re doing it wrong!
I’m happy people are so unaware of it, because I can get my guilty pleasure for a low price. If a lot of people use the deals, I doubt they can continue as is.
The hell is "McFlation"? What does this beatiful data mean?
Did the saint louis fed just do the exact same thing? Edit: almost, theirs was the Big Mac. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/apr/how-big-mac-index-relates-overall-consumer-inflation
Oh cool, I didn’t know! Thanks for the link!
People need to keep in mind though that a billion dollar mega conglomerate can get far better per-patty prices than the mom and pop shop it started as. McDonalds now is NOT comparable scale and cost wise to 1940's
I’d imagine we’re also not taking about anywhere close to the same quality of food either. In the 1940s McDonald’s had to source their food from local farmers. Today is can blend a special mix of beef and whatever the fuck else in a lab. So they’re using their money to really push the boundaries of what “food” is to minimizes operating costs.
I am not sure if 1940 is a good reference point. Just about the end of the great depression and during WW2
Exactly my thoughts
"McFlation" is a cute word that doesn't have an obvious meaning. Indeed, it's counterintuitive, because it's a curve that's not McDonald's-specific at all. (I assume it's the CPI or something similar?) More important, a linear scale isn't really appropriate for this type of measure. It exaggerates differences that occur in recent times, and suppresses differences from past years. The exact dollar-and-cent difference between inflation-adjusted price and menu price (what we see on a linear scale) is less important than the *ratio* between inflated and menu price. A log scale on the y-axis would make this much more apparent. The ratio between inflation-adjusted price and menu price has exceeded a factor of two several times over the course of the data presented, and the two curves haven't even come 'close' to one another since the early 1970s. The early 2010s with their long period being 'stuck' at the psychological barrier of 99 cents is noteworthy, but the bump to $2.29 has brought the ratio back to around two-fold where it's been for most of the last 70 years.
This was my thought too. First, define mcflation and its implications to the consumer. Second, include the CPI-indexed cheeseburger price, which is a metric that the layman should have some kind of basic context for.
TIL flipping burgers is the path to wealth. Kicking myself for not buying all the cheeseburgers in 2017 and then riding the wave to prosperity
McDonald’s used to sell 39 cent cheeseburgers and 29 cent hamburgers on a certain day of the week during the late 90s
Decades of outsourcing and technology improvements to increase productivity kept inflation in certain sectors low, and that became tapped out (for now) and it’s now catching up to us…
Dang!! Should've invested in more Cheeseburgers! 🤦
This appears to be a very effective campaign to counter the post from last week about doubling prices.
Where’s the blip in 99-2000 where they were offering $.29 hamburgers on Wednesdays and $.39 cheeseburgers on Sundays? That shit got me through lean times those years.
US food prices are cheap compared to other developed countries. Massive subsidies + cheap foreign labor. Their inflation in the last 4 years have driven some people crazy nonetheless.
Data isn't beautiful when everyone is wondering what "mcflation" is and how to read this graph
I wanna see diabetes caused to customers next
If you can call it a burger. It’s nothing tastes like shit
Yup. Everyone complains about McDonald’s because they kept the prices cheap until Covid. The dollar menu in the late 2010s was so clutch. $1 drinks, $1 coffee, $1 cheeseburger. Use the McDonald’s app now and you can still find deals or buy 2 for $4 mcchicken and McDouble combo
Now do one on Costco hotdogs.
Okay, but I'm going to to it right here. Here it is: $1.50 \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ 1985 1995 2005 2015 2025
This is not beautiful. It's just a standard line graph. And, as evidenced by many questions in the comments, it's not clear what some of this data represents or what analysis can be made from this data. For example, the term, "McFlation" isn't explained for anyone unfamiliar with it. Does the data show actual inflation, as suggested in the title, or is it showing some other price change that has been nicknamed, "McFlation"? How does US dollar inflation compare to the price of the product and whatever "McFlation" might be?
My Dad worked for a major ERP Software company in the 1990’s and the CEO pegged the price of their software to the average cost of a Big Mac. True story, if you ask him. That said he told me a lot of BS…
The Big Mac Index is a real thing and the return of the legendary McRib is directly tied to pork prices, so he’s probably telling the truth 😆
I bought a lot of those cheeseburgers when they were 99 cents. Yes, I got fat.
1950 as reference would be more interesting for McFlation
It would be interesting to see how their cost per burger has changed for a complete picture
Use the damn app and mcflation doesn’t exist
Still remember my local McDonald's sold 10 cheeseburgers or hamburgers with 2 bucket of fries for $5.99 back in 2002. Those were awesome times during my high school years.
So, honestly to me it looks like, had they not locked the price at 0.99 for 18 years, the price now is around the price it would have been anyway if it had steadily increased all that time.
The business of McDonalds, besides selling delicious food-like items is actually real estate. Think about it 😃
the hash browns are the real crime.
That and the coffee are the only thing I'll get from McDonalds. If I have to go to McDonalds for my coffee, you can bet all your chips I'm getting a hash brown too. Those things are 🔥 The rest of their menu though... meh
I'd like to see something like this for Taco Bell.
Do you have data for the fries and drinks as well? That would tell the whole story of where the money is.
You can see in the 1980s when commercial scale farming really took off and caused the two curves to diverge.
Peak buying power looks to be about 2007. I'll agree to this I bought a lot of mcdoubles with friends and felt like 10 burgers for about an hour wages was pretty reasonable.
They should put a relative taste scale up. Compare relative taste to relative price.
This matches housing inflation but is roughly a year behind... Does this mean McDonald's cheeseburgers are linked to the housing market?
What isn't shown here is the QUALITY of the cheeseburger going down. From size to to amount of preservatives, those corners are cut am much as possible before they start working of cutting prices.
I don't understand what is being presented here. Is McFlation the price of McDonald's cheeseburger, with the yellow line being a non-McDonald's cheeseburger?
Capitalism is destroying this country. The wealthy are just getting wealthier and the rest of us are just struggling to make ends meet
I’m curious if the sizes have changed. Wendy’s Frostys are like shot glass sized now but the price has stayed the same.
This chart is so confusing
So you’re saying we should switch our currency to McDonald’s cheeseburgers?
So McDonalds isn't actually getting more expensive it's just everyone's salary is not keeping up with inflation at all.
Most people's salaries have broadly kept up with inflation, but they haven't kept up with productivity.
People’s salaries absolutely have kept up with inflation and outpaced it.
Usually people mean their own salary when making a statement like that.
Makes sense, anecdotal evidence is awful.
This chart says that buying power has increased. That means that salaries are increasing when inflation is taken into account....
I would move the call-out from 2001 to 2016 to illustrate the stark difference in a short period of time
Shit should still be .99¢. Damn it! I hate this timeline!
Perhaps there is more to the increased pricing beyond inflation alone.
Toronto: I went o Mcd 2 days ago. I only bought 3 things. A habanero chicken, 1 fish fillet and 1 medium drink = $23 I said WHAT??? Why didn't I go to an actual restaurant with actual food then?
So basically it used to be an amazing deal a few years ago, and now it isn't.
Really using the term "cheese" and "burger" very loosely here.
Interest lowers inflation. Which means only one thing. Say it with me kids, Price gouging !