Comment on What even is money at this point
rumba@lemmy.zip 2 weeks agoYes and no. Labor costs are being ignored, but they’re not all that significant. If you add in even a relatively high minimum wage, the cost blurs out with any volume. Whether you cost them $7 for an hour or $14 is just the difference of a single wasted meal at current prices.
Profit and Loss sheets are messy. They’re paying back of house, front of house, a manager, power, maintenance and rent, but then they’re making dozens of meals an hour. They’re paying 1/10 of the cost for raw ingredients.
Herein lies the rub:
In 2018, a fast food meal at a number of places for 4 ran about $30-$40; currently, it’s closer to $60.
Tacobell still sells a meal for less than $7 with a drink and enough food to satiate an obese II adult. It’s gone up maybe $1.50 since 2018.
Selection and quality have gone down. Most places have been understaffed since covid, they’re paying less in wages, value menus are disappearing.
It would seem that a bunch of places took opportunities to raise their prices until the lines dissapeared. I remember a time, not long ago, if you went to a drive-through around dinner, you were going to be there for a while. McDonalds put in second lanes in most stores to handle the load.
I don’t think I’ve been in a fast food line with more than 2 cars in a few years.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Wow there is so much wrong with your statement I don’t even know where to begin. I’m just going to stay at the obvious that you can still obviously feed a family of four for $40 or less. I know that because I have a family of four and weed out a lot and I’m very aware of pretty much all of the fast food costs. Well yes there are some that can definitely be $50 $60 or more I can definitely buy meals for everybody to be satiated for $40 or less even. Hell when I’m trying to save money I can’t even go a little as low as 20 bucks at a number of different places. And also I’m a business owner and so there are a ton of cost involved besides labor as you mentioned there and the cost of raw materials for food is definitely higher than 1/10 of the cost of what the food is itself. Usually you’re dealing with maybe 20 to 30% and that is being spread over the cost of everything else included there.