That chart is evil. First two ticks represent 5 years. Ticks 2-3 represent 2 years. The last two ticks represent 2 1/2-3 years!
Also, what’s so magical about 2014 that it deserves to be the baseline? I’d love to see this extended back to, oh, 2006 or so. Sometime before the Great Recession.
Finally, what about shrinkflation? I used to order from Panera on a regular basis, but during the pandemic, it seemed like their sandwiches shrank a little bit more between every order. At this point, I don’t think it’s even worth ordering from them.
JFC I didn’t even notice the x axis at first glance.
And who is what at that mid-level grouping on the left vertical? I could guess at the colors, but I’ve come up with 9 different possibilities. It’d be nice to be able to tell which is leveling off and which is accelerating.
Ooooh, now plot the avg wage across this period. Y=min wage.
I was talking with a coworker the other day and they were talking about how raising minimum wage causes inflation because businesses will raise prices to offset to rise in labor costs. I asked if he thought inflation had gotten bad in the past 5ish years in particular. He said of course. I said well federal minimum wage hasn’t risen since 2009, which was 15 years ago, so it sounds like inflation is gonna happen regardless of wages and is based on the capitalistic goal of infinite growth, so maybe we should raise minimum wage so lower income people have a shot at affording basic necessities.
He just said no, then inflation just would’ve been worse. It’s maddening.
The response to this is that inflation is a market force working against the downward pressure of demand. There is a limit to the amount prices can go up before people stop buying altogether.
Another inflationary force is greed, funneling additional profits into the pockets of the 0.1%.
Let the inflation due to minimum wage be X, and the inflation due to greed be Y, and the maximum total inflation be Z. X+Y=Z
Of course there are other variables, but in a general sense, if X goes up, Y must go down. If X does not go up, Y does.
So yes there will be inflation, but increasing wages takes more money from the ownership and puts it into the pockets of the bottom 99.9% where it will do far more good.
And in case it wasn’t clear, this is precisely why the oligarchy opposes increasing the minimum wage. It has nothing to do with inflation, and everything to do with they make less money.
Except that they have studies that prove that they make more money when they increase wages. Tons of em since the '70s have shown that putting more money in the hands of the poor just means that the rich get to skim off even more money. They oppose thriving wages because they want suffering.
You’re confusing a rising tide with a water hose. We absolutely know that increasing wages is good for the economy, but that helps everyone. Oligarchs benefit financially from poverty, even if the economy suffers. As you said, they want suffering, because it allows them to exploit people. Capitalism is the idea that one with means can leverage their position to capture disproportionate value from effort of others. Don’t confuse capitalism with the economy. Capitalists always make money, and they don’t necessarily make more money when the economy is thriving.
Actually, this graph does display the % average wage increase!
It’s the line where the x axis is.
This companies are able to generate billions in profit every quarter, let alone every year. They have also been reporting record breaking profits quarter after quarter for the past several years. I’m pretty sure the 17 y/o Burger flippers aren’t the problem here.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit
- McDonald’s gross profit for the quarter ending March 31, 2024 was $3.439B, a 3.77% increase year-over-year.
- McDonald’s gross profit for the twelve months ending March 31, 2024 was $14.688B, a 9.03% increase year-over-year.
- McDonald’s annual gross profit for 2023 was $14.563B, a 10.26% increase from 2022.
- 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.
[1]Average franchise profitability at Burger King rose nearly +50% last year (2023) compared to 2022
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SBUX/starbucks/gross-profit
- Starbucks gross profit for the quarter ending March 31, 2024 was $5.914B, a 0.06% decline year-over-year.
- Starbucks gross profit for the twelve months ending March 31, 2024 was $25.104B, a 8.86% increase year-over-year.
- Starbucks annual gross profit for 2023 was $24.567B, a 12.01% increase from 2022.
- Starbucks annual gross profit for 2022 was $21.933B, a 7.93% increase from 2021.
- Starbucks annual gross profit for 2021 was $20.322B, a 28.43% increase from 2020.
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It’s been maddening to watch people call price-gouging “inflation”, honestly.
That’s not fucking inflation when someone in the supply chain made things more expensive and pocketed the difference as a wider profit margin; it’s the symptom of non-enforcement of antitrust laws.
I mean, most foodstuffs markets (in the supply chain between farm and grocer or farm -> restaurant) are controlled by very few people or corporations; when the farmers get less for their products but the grocer must pay more for them, that’s not inflation. It’s price-gouging, the symptom of the kinds of market failures that follow regulatory failures to prevent corporate mergers that would reduce competition in those markets.
When you look at food, fuel, housing, the enshittification of basically everything, the acquisition of yesterday’s hot-fresh-streaming services and re-packaging them to be just as predatory as the cable was when you cut the cord and went to streaming- it’s all what we get when private equity owns a piece of everything and they’re running it all to squeeze more out of everyone they can, and they also ensure regulators don’t do a damned thing about it.
There was once a time when regulators had the will to block corporate mergers, and they had the will to tax windfall profits at 100%.
If inflation isn’t based on most prices increasing… What is it based on?
If inflation isn’t based on most prices increasing… What is it based on?
It’s the devaluation of currency that happens when too much of it chases too few goods in the marketplace. It’s purely a monetary thing, you get that when the supply of money grows more quickly than the value of real goods in the economy does.
Ideally, we print money (and take it out of circulation) at a pace that keeps the money supply more or less balanced to the value of available goods and services in the economy. If we were to print too much money, or not take enough out of circulation (note: paying taxes does this; when you pay taxes the money doesn’t go into some account somewhere, it’s used to zero out the bonds issued to create it), the amount of money in circulation would become greater than the amount of real valuable goods in the economy. When that happens, the resulting bidding contest to secure those goods (after all, money doesn’t have intrinsic value, it’s only good for buying things that do) drives up the price of those goods in monetary terms.
I’m pretty sure the McDonald’s one is false, which makes me think all of the others are too. This is a bad faith argument. I’m assuming this is going around TikTok and that’s why so many braindead people keep repeating it
Yeah, look at the x axis labels. 5 years, 2 years, and 3 years. WTF?
Ha, I came here to say that, too.
I’m definitely weary of posts like this with no data backup. Also what is “actual inflation”? Wouldn’t that be like average inflation across all goods? Doesn’t inflation affect certain markets differently?
I’m also tired of posts like this.
I have found the article here: https://financebuzz.com/fast-food-prices-vs-inflation
At work so I can’t read it atm, but I’m interested to hear your conclusion later
I found this article yesterday, from none other than Fox (who I would think would lean into this narrative): https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/mcdonalds-pushes-back-hefty-price-hikes-including-18-big-mac-meal
According to the McDonald’s CEO, the $18 Big Mac (which is where this number comes from) was 1 location, and the average price of a Big Mac is up 21% since 2019 (less than inflation). So I think all of these numbers in your article are cherry picked or just made up
The quality at all of those places has gone down over that time too. I didn’t even think that was possible
When I was in college, I could fill up on three bean burritos at Taco Bell for $1.81 out the door. Del Taco was cheaper at $1.50.
That was thirty years ago, but still. I don’t know how to explain it, but it felt a whole lot easier to dig up that kind of pocket change back then than it does to dig up whatever it costs today.
Used to be a 20$ bill could get you all you need at t bell.
Damn food trucks took our jobs.
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