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)!”
This is why among many reasons I am cutting my fast food down to very specific occasions. Also there is a guy online who is leaking all of the recipes for fast food favorites so you can make them at home.
Are you seriously making the case that people choose fast food restaurants because they cannot prepare the same food at home?