McDonald's, Chipotle, Starbucks, Taco Bell, Shake Shack, In-N-Out Burger and other fast-food restaurants hope they dodged a bullet in the minimum wage hike.
They’re talking about raising prices 5-10% in order to offset the increased labor costs. The problem is that many of these companies have already been raising prices over the past four years in order to offset inflation in supply chain costs and increased demand, and have in addition seen increases in their bottom lines:
McDonald’s gross profit for the twelve months ending September 30, 2023 was $14.317B, a 9.63% increase year-over-year. McDonald’s annual gross profit for 2022 was $13.207B, a 4.98% increase from 2021. McDonald’s annual gross profit for 2021 was $12.58B, a 29% increase from 2020.
So this isn’t being done because they’re barely scraping by as it is. This is seeing what else they can get away with.
Get away with, and also possibly use to shift the blame onto the workers for daring to want to live. I’m sure they’ll use this as a talking point against continued efforts to unionize the fast-food employees. “We just gave them a raise (but only because we had to)! Look how much that increased costs for you, and this will do it again (because we couldn’t possibly just make slightly less profit)!”
They’re talking about raising prices 5-10% in order to offset the increased labor costs. The problem is that many of these companies have already been raising prices over the past four years in order to offset inflation in supply chain costs and increased demand, and have in addition seen increases in their bottom lines:
So this isn’t being done because they’re barely scraping by as it is. This is seeing what else they can get away with.
Get away with, and also possibly use to shift the blame onto the workers for daring to want to live. I’m sure they’ll use this as a talking point against continued efforts to unionize the fast-food employees. “We just gave them a raise (but only because we had to)! Look how much that increased costs for you, and this will do it again (because we couldn’t possibly just make slightly less profit)!”