“McFlation” = California’s New Minimum Wage plus “Bidenflation”
$25 McDonald’s Order Inspires Epic Video Rant
Legal Insurrection has been following the roll-out of the California $20/hour minimum wage rule for fast food workers since the legislation passed, and franchises responded by firing workers.
However, the employees are not the only ones hurting. Californians who used to head to McDonald’s for an inexpensive meal are also upset.
A TikTok video of a customer complaining about the price of a $25 deal at a California McDonald’s has sparked blame for the state’s latest minimum wage increase for fast food workers.
Since going into effect on April 1, the law requires chains with 60 or more restaurants nationwide to offer workers a $20 an hour starting wage, up from the previous $16 standard.
The viral video shows the frustrated customer at a Southern California drive-thru venting as she calls the price of the “40-piece chicken McNuggets bundle” absurd. The combo comes with four containers of 10 piece nuggets and two large fries for $25.39 plus a sales tax, which she calls “McFlation.”
“OK, so it’s $25.39 for 40-piece nuggets and two large fries,” the customer said in the video. “You couldn’t even throw in a medium Sprite in there? Holy crap.”
This TikTok went viral for calling out a McDonald's "deal" where 40 nuggets and two large fries cost $25.39. The creator calls it "McFlation"
Over the last ten years no fast food chain has raised prices as much as McDonald's, which has doubled and tripled the cost of some items. pic.twitter.com/3Ns5yVr2SW
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) April 8, 2024
But the new California requirements aren’t the only factor in McFlation. Raising food prices, due to factors such as fuel and fertilizer prices (courtesy of eco-activist policies), are also impacting the cost of Chicken McNuggets.
Inflation rose to 3.5% in March, an unexpected increase that continued to crush American’s wallets and President Biden’s approval rating.
Despite repeated promises that inflation was “transitory,” inflation has remained high throughout the president’s term, and he’s backed off using the term “Bidenomics” as people have bristled at high costs , particularly in restaurants and grocery stores.
Biden responded by blaming grocers for wanting to make reasonable profits and slamming Republicans (of course).
I’m calling on corporations including grocery retailers to use record profits to reduce prices.
Fighting inflation remains my top economic priority. We’re making progress: wages are rising faster than prices, incomes are higher than before the pandemic, and unemployment has remained below 4% for the longest stretch in 50 years. But we have more to do: my agenda is lowering costs for prescription drugs, health care, student debt, and hidden junk fees. Rather than proposing solutions for hardworking families, Congressional Republicans want to slash taxes for billionaires and big corporations, while helping special interests and Big Pharma raise prices. I won’t let them.
Food prices are anticipated to go up for the remainder of this year.
The rate of food inflation for food at home is expected to slow as the year goes on, but prices in most categories will still rise.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released its forecast for 2024 that shows all food prices are expected to increase 2.5% while food-at-home prices are predicted to go up 1.6%.
I expect to see more “McFlation Rage” videos through the rest of the year . . . from California, as well as from other states in this great nation.
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Comments
Well dumbasses, you voted for this.
It will get worse and if you re-elect Biden and the rest of the Democrat scum, you’ll be eating dog food instead of McDonald’s.
Agreed. The voters got what they voted for: lousy governance.
Maybe not. Have you checked the price of pet food lately?
you will eat de bugs and like them.
you will own NOTHING and will be happy.
Not so fast…..they are starting to decide that since bugs are sentient beings… we would be killing trillions of such fellow earth creatures so no bugs either…I think we are just supposed to accept we are the carbon they want eliminated
Actually… I have Lefty friend of old acquaintance in Portland who was eating cricket powder, mixing it into her food. She recently gave it up because it has become too expensive to eat bugs.
Bizzaro world indeed….
I vote against these issues and my state “representatives” every chance I get. But being able to say, “I told you so,” is cold comfort. It doesn’t help that they rigged the electoral system to have permanent super-majorities, either.
$20 an hour…if they were paid $22 an hour I would not have to wait 17 minutes for two McDoubles.
I know what happened to the icon of America, but I would be called a racist for noticing.
Chick Fil A does not have gang shootouts in the parking lot.
“Californians who used to head to McDonald’s for an inexpensive meal are also upset.”
Yeah? So who did you vote for and why? Because I bet you thought that raising the minimum wage sounded just peachy. It’s those rich corporations that will pay for it right? The workers will get more money in their pockets and enjoy a higher standard of living! You bought the magic beans.
And then reality set in. The corporations start eliminating those jobs to cut their costs and raising their prices to pay for the expenses of the new law. Or going out of business. All of which anyone with a scintilla of common sense, and bothered to employ it, would have realized would happen.
The Law of Unintended Consequences should be taught in high schools.
In 1971 on paydays my dad would take the family out to Mickie Ds,
hamburger 20 cents X 6
Small Fries 15 cents X 6
Medium coke 20 cents X 6
= $3.30
“Make a run for the border.”
Taco Bell was ahead of their time. Now Californians will slip across to Nevada to grab a burrito or a Big Mac.
I’m not convinced said consequences were unintended, because as you say anyone with a scintilla of common sense could have foreseen it, and I do not give Democrats the benefit of assuming they’re dumb and not evil.
Oh I absolutely believe that the Dem politicians knew what they were doing and why.
It’s the voters who bought the magic beans who desperately need an education in looking past the sales pitch. If I could prescribe a cure for what ails the California voter it would be a big injection of distrust of the establishment in their state and an extreme suspicion of any political magic bean salesmen.
It better positions the “hero” government to rescue us from their intended consequences…. Government dependent serfs 4-ev-ah!
The customer’s ire is misdirected at the wrong party. What he experienced is properly termed “Bidenflation” and “Newsomflation.” The McDonald’s franchise owner is simply responding to the economic conditions that have been created by the vile, stupid and fiscally illiterate Dhimmi-crats.
Yes, don’t blame a hobbled horse for not running as fast as you want. Blame whoever did the hobbling.
same party …. Biden and Newsom …
Remember when Biden blamed higher fuel prices on mom-and-pop gas stations that he claimed were price-gouging? (Nevermind that profit from fuel sales is measured in pennies-per-gallon and those same gas stations make their money almost entirely from convenience sales.)
Same broken-record hand-waving here.
Come to our bakery in W Columbia and marvel at the level of automation the desire for magic beans have brought the industrial world.
Here is a datapoint for FJB throwing rocks at supermarkets. For the last 12 months Kroger, a leading chain, had aftertax profits of 1.4% of revenue, versus 1.5% the year before. Apple had profits of 26% of revenue. I bet some people spend more on Apple products than food. They have almost 20X the bottom line profitability of a tough, low-profit grocery business. FJB should by howling for them to cut prices.
The average grocery store profit (back when I was involved) was 2.0%. Despite Mr. Biden’s pronouncements, it’s impossible to continue in business if you do not generate a profit. How can an individual who “taught Constitutional law”, fail Economics 101?
Again the Keynesians prove you can’t vote your way to prosperity.
The only good from this episode is the real world lesson in practical economics being delivered up for anyone paying attention. That and the always delicious tears of frustration from incompetent leftists as they offer up more schadenfreude for those of us outside the scope of their failure to enjoy.
I admit that I take more than passing pleasure in seeing Leftist oppression self-delivered to Leftists in California instead of in America. Now if only we could seal the borders with West Coast states.
Subotai Bahadur
My wife & I went to Five Guys in Newport Beach last week while visiting friends. It was almost $60 for two bacon cheeseburgers, two fries and two sodas. That’s about $15 more than we pay at home (which is still ridiculously expensive). I can’t imagine what it’s going to be in California in a couple months.
McDonald’s is raising prices because they are greedy capitalists, as is reflected in their record profits on top of not paying their fair share of taxes. Why is this so hard to understand? Because you didn’t pay attention in college?
[That is how the average CA voter thinks, which is why they keep voting in the same old same old election after election and why this won’t change until the education system is completely overhauled]
In a few years people will be reminiscing about the good old days.
“I can remember when hamburgers were only $500.”
“Yeah, that was the year they changed the mission of Border Patrol to try to keep people from leaving.”
Yep.
This has been going on for a while.
I live in commiefornia for work and because I have family that lives there (as soon as I get the chance I’m gone).
It is now CHEAPER to go into a sitdown restaurant like Dennys or IHOP and get a full meal than it is to get a full meal from a place like McDonalds or Wendys. Which defeats the purpose of fast food existing. The entire selling point of fast food is that it is faster and cheaper, in exchange for lower quality.
You can’t have lower quality AND have it more expensive.
Maybe there’s another potential positive here in that sit down restaurants have healthier options and if more folks laid off the fried/over processed foods from fast food joints and had to at least walk into the place v a drive thru they would have healthier outcomes. Heck maybe the pricing will cause folks to go grocery shopping and prepare healthier their meals at home. Probably not b/c most most folks lack the self discipline which is why over 2/3 of Americans are way past slightly overweight if not outright obese.
Denny’s/IHOP is not healthier than McDonald’s/Wendy’s
A higher caliber of sit down restaurants will definitely not be cheaper than McD’s.
However, on the grocery option, you might have a point. The problem is that yesterday’s eating out prices are today’s grocery store prices and wages in the middle are stagnant compared to cost of living increases.
Lots of Mom/Pop ‘meat and three’ style places out there that folks could patronize. The real issue is what folks choose to consume; fried fish/chicken +fried okra+ fries+ cobbler +a hush puppy isn’t healthy.
Yes, people with money and common sense would likely focus on providing fresh cooked whole food meals to their families to the best of their abilities. Don’t eat what you didn’t cook (and perhaps raise) might be their new battle cry.
But have you ever SEEN the utter crap that EBT folks tend to load their carts with? Some of those families never see a hot meal unless it is from a fast food shop or microwaved pizza. That will only get worse. (Yes, that’s a generalization but I often shop at wallymart and I know what I see).
With obesity rates well over half the population it isn’t just folks using an EBT that make poor choices.
Yes, but I’m not paying for the rest of the populace to get fat.
I AM paying for EBT recipients to do so.
1000^
The problem is time. For the average person on a lunch hour the extra time involved in a ‘sit-down’ meal is impractical. 15 minutes from your work to the restaurant, 10 minutes in line at the drive-in window, 10 minutes to eat in the car, 15 minutes back to work, and 10 minutes ‘wiggle time’ in case of the unexpected.
That 10 minutes ‘wiggle time’ isn’t enough for the waitress to seat you and bring
Which is where a sack lunch from home comes in. A PBJ sandwich, an apple and a granola bar+ a sleeve of drink mix to put into your water bottle is easy enough for a bachelor to prepare. Even better would be a Spouse who had more culinary skills and the will to use them to the benefit of her husband.
Exactly. And precisely why they are targeting fast food. It won’t be long before there will be no fast food franchises anywhere. Working at McDonald’s (or whatever) was a teen job so kids could learn responsibility (being on time, doing their job) and some extra pocket money. It’s not a freaking career and was never ever that. It was kids making fast food at low prices to feed the masses on the cheap.
That was not acceptable to Democrats. Suddenly, a part-time teen job i s supposed to be lifetime career with full benefits, retirement, and a $20/hour wage. Absolutely insane.
Democrats are dead serious about rolling back civilization. Killing capitalism is just the means. They want us huddling in caves, eating bugs, and farming their food and luxuries.
My routine visits to Wendy’s stopped during WuFlu, but I did go last Thursday and my standard biggie meal with small choco frosty that was $5.50 in 2020 is now $7.29, so roughly 33% which seems on the low end of changes I have noted in the 35-50% range. The Jr Bacon Cheeseburger which was $2 is now $3.60, so the a la carte stuff has taken a hit since the cost of the drinks in meal packages likely hasn’t changed much. For the longest time I just did a Jr baco, fries, and small Frostie off the $ menu for $3.00.
My alternative, Burgerville, had a $6.29 baco cheeseburger with extra pattie (2.40) for $8.69 in 2020. It is now $8.99 plus (3.00) so $11.99 and 38% more. Seemed to go up a quarter in between visits for awhile. Fortunately my local thai place is holding firm at an excellent $13 take out.
We just had another food cart pod open and those places are charging more than the local brick and mortars. It used to be that one had a cart, and if the business model worked, they would expand into a brick and mortar somewhere in the neighborhood.
On a different note, the local coffee joints hated Fourbux when they moved in and rapidly expanded because they were undercutting the price. But now Fourbux is way more expensive and their brick and mortars are dying off, with only the Kiosks (Fauxbux) in groery stores and Targets being able to stay afloat.
The (Left/Dem/progs/WEF/etc) wanted to ban “fast food”… of course, ALL food is hammered but that is a “bug” in the system. All of this didn’t have to happen.
The sad part is, the ones griping loudest probably can’t figure out that they’ve gotten exactly what they voted for.
We have an obesity epidemic in America today. If fewer people are going to be eating junk fast food, maybe it’s for the better.
Yeah, I’m sure that the government will do as dandy a job running Californians diets as they’ve done on all the other the other things government does; controlling crime, homelessness, supertrains, you name it.
You love you some authoritarian government dontcha. I think people like you… should have the option of signing up and letting the government tell you what to eat, what and when to drive, the temperature you are allowed in your home, what kind of job/business you can or cannot have, what you are allowed to spend your money … you get the idea. The megalomaniacs in government would have you to spend their time and energy on…and you clearly would love to have ALL your decisions made for you..,and they can leave the rest of us the frick alone!
Big Mac effect. Transitory— like if you like your health insurance and your doctor, you can keep them.
Costco grocery trip yesterday….. $1137. Granted this was a stocking up trip that included two tenderloin tubes and bunch of beef and chicken. I recall when those tenderloins first hit Costco’s freezer they were 9 buck/pound. I think it was 23/pound yesterday.
Stocking up is good. We should all do that. Now.
Stocking up is a short-term solution: it only works if things will get better in the future, and this is California we’re talkimg about.
Keep 6 months of provisions between your pantry and the supply chain.
Stocking up on meat also only works long term when the meat is on the hoof..
Two rounds of “stimulus” and massive government spending gave us inflation. They literally INFLATED the money supply by 30% in 30 months. This happened through Trump and Biden and both Congresses. This is not all one persons fault.
Trump is guilty but Biden tried (and “succeeded”) to vastly outspend him.
Damn maybe they’ll need to find some food that’s not poison
Have a bought an orange or apple recently….
It isn’t just the pricing of things at fast food, and restaurants generally. I’ve noticed a near-universal policy since Covid of restaurant employees being, in my view, lazy and not putting anything out for the customers, such as salt, napkins, and condiments. You must ask an increasingly hard to find employee for them, and they treat you like they’re handing you diamonds when they hand them over. Ask for salt, get one inadequate packet. Must ask a second time for a more reasonable number. Repeat for everything you want. I went to a place today that said they wouldn’t give me a second tiny mayo packet because “they’re too expensive”.
In Portland you need to ask because everything left on a counter is stolen by the ferals. EVERYTHING! Why buy a can of tomato soup when you can make it from 40 ketchup packets and that cup of free hot water? At some point I expect them to put trash cans in the bathroom stalls because that is where a significant amount of the deli food is eaten. They can’t walk out now because the armed guards check receipts. One local branch now requires deli food to be purchased before it is handed over, and I told the manager that he will need to fire one of the deli employees as they now only need to make 75% as much.
If I had to describe Portland with one word these days, it would be “hardened.” There are locks, gates, and fences everywhere. The doorways of all businesses now have expanding gates to block the covered area at night. The local “ultra-lefty” grocery store recently removed the 6 picnic tables from in front of the store. This is the same store with the giant BLM sign which, to my knowledge, might only have 1 or 2 black customers a day because their prices are so over the top. Those of us who are comfortable actually being around people who are different get to pay 50% less when we shop for the exact same items at WINCO. They say it is because the produce there is SOOOOOO much better, but honest people know it is because they are scared of actually being around any dark skinned people. They get really mad when I point this out, which I do, frequently. Same goes for the local farmers markets, which too are devoid of black people. You can’t get many $5 apples on that EBT card.
I don’t know what’s funnier, her whiny voice wanting a free drink or the price increase.
I knew eating out was expensive soon after moving out of the parents place, learn to cook loser.
Never had to make a lunch in the dark hours of morning because the lunch ware cooked on a Sunday and packed individually for the rest of the week.
Get up without disturbing a soul, toss that stuff in the cooler and off to work.
Now do The PRO Act.
Golf clap for the economic geniuses in Cali. Raise the minimum wage, which is actually zero, and welcome to automated stores, order kiosks and self checkouts.
Meh. That’s nothing. I know people who get McDonald’s through Door Dash and they pay a through the nose for lukewarm burgers and third rate fries. Tons more than $25, I’ll tell you that. Personally, I don’t get it, at all.
I used to love McDonald’s but I haven’t been to one in years and years. I remember when I went once to take my nephew there and they told me they didn’t super-size anything anymore. I was shocked, really. How ridiculous. Then I got their fries and I was glad it wasn’t super-sized. They sucked.
You can say thank you to the Muslim population for McDonalds ceasing to use animal fats in their fry oil for that decline in taste.
I think that McDonald’s jumped on the anti-animal fat bandwagon long before anyone in America had ever even seen a muzzie (who was not just a Nation of Islam loon). The fast food places started with their anti-lard crusade sometime in the 80s, I think … back when they started giving in to (enthusiastically, though) the “health food” nuts.
My son turned 21 recently, and he has been to McDonalds exactly once, because he saw the happy meal and playground on TV. Even as a 6yo that one visit was enough.
This, and all the other food related issues –no gardening, no chickens, no small ranches, ‘bird flu’, infected cattle
Are all designed to get you dependent on government for food.
People who can’t feed themselves are very easy to control if you’re the source of sustenance.
During a Summer when I was in high school (about 1967,) I earned $1/hour.
After a few weeks, I received a ten cent/hour raise.