Burger economy
how does minimum wage only double when products go 16x? jesus the education system really is shit in the US. there would be constant riots in the streets if only people knew arithmetic
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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I believe the common strawman is "if min wage goes up, prices go up" which..... You know just admits the system is there to abuse. "If you make more money then we'll take more money from you".
the idea is that wages are part of expenses which contribute to prices, which is why you need more regulation about this sort of thing. the best part is that when the min wage doesn't go up, the prices still go up.
There's a LOT of people that don't understand inflation at all. They think something along the lines of, "I worked myself through college making $5/hr and it was hard and I didn't get to buy all the things I wanted but it was fine. These lazy entitled people want several times that much for the same work?!"
So it's not just basic math but basic economics and a basic understanding of reality that are sorely lacking.
There’s a LOT of people that don’t understand inflation at all.
Why don't we just tariff inflation so China has to pay it? This seems bigly smart.
Because minimum wage is defined by laws and has been purposefully kept below inflation. It hasn't substantially increased (or maybe not at all) in my lifetime.
Inflation is purposely misexplained as something specific to a time period. So people aren't aware that it's a measure of velocity, how fast prices are rising. Our political system also gives the illusion of a reset every four years.
They obfuscate the data from people and they don't try to find it. Obviously they know that 16 is bigger than 2..
Look at how much corporate profits have gone up though
NO BURGER????
For real though, can't even buy a 20 piece nugget anymore on an hour's work, shit's fucked
The last time this showed up people pointed out that big Mac’s cost more like $1.50 in 1980. Still multiple BMs per hour but not as drastic.
multiple BMs per hour
This sounds drastic no matter what the number is.
I'm sorry, I had to.
Plausible with that many big macs, though.
I wasn't alive then but 50 cents seemed low for a big mac, even for the '80s
And a Big Mac isn't $8 around here and no one is paid federal min wage. It's $13 in Florida and $15 IRL. Using the app to save, it's probably 2.5 burgers.
Big Mac is 5.19 in the app for me.
And I don’t know if this is a good indicator of actual minimum wage, but fast food salary on average is way more than $13 an hour. Funny that Florida is right at the bottom of that list. You’d be better off in West Virginia (brand new sentence).
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-FAST-FOOD-Worker-Salary-by-State
Unexpected, that's much higher than I expected for Tennessee. The manager positions at the fast food places here are on 17, yet the average fast food worker is over 17 for the state according to that
I’m sure it varies where you live and what the restaurant is. I live near Nashville and saw some fast food places paying $19 an hour starting.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
Big macs are actually used as a real economic index
And it's been used enough that Argentina artificially set the price of Big Macs for a few years to hide their rampant inflation.
In Germany the minimum wage is 12.82€/hour. The price for a Big Mac is 4.19€
BM/Hour: 3,07
In Germany, they call a Big Mac a Doppelrindfleischkäsebrötchen mit Spezialsoße
No
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BMs per hour
"I just can't stop pooping!"
A big mac is sure to give you multiple BM's per hour
BMs per hour means something else in this house
If you're having 6.20 BMs per hour, God help you.
IBS: "Hold my beer."
It's an aggregate statistic.
I still think it is wild that we don't include house prices in inflation, cause it was removed to use rent to match the "average American experience" which just means they no longer expect average people to ever buy a house.
So no houses and no burgers.
These big mac prices aren't accurate
I have a feeling that the burgers were way less shitty in the 60's, but were they as big? Theres a myth here that every normal US meal is enough food to feed someone for several days, so I wonder if size has been factored in?
Also a big Mac costs £6.09 in england, minimum wage soon will be £12.21 = 2 big macs per hour of your labour.
I will mention that they have an app which can make it a lot cheaper and gives freebies and so on.
Burgers used to be smaller. A quarter pounder was a big burger.
I like that it implies landlords aren't people
Implying well known facts.
Oh no, here's where you are wrong. See, it's a decline for the proletariat only. The bourgeoisie is doing just great.
Heh, look at this dumb sattire. There's no way it would take simplifying the economy down to a single food item before our superior American intellect realized that our government was actually our enemy. Anyway...
Trump take egg
/s
The BigMac Index was actually a really good metric. It's sold nearly everywhere in the world, was a low margin product, and depends on a complex global supply chain that's a good stand-in for other supply chains. It was used as a way to cut-through governments reporting innacurate numbers.
Meanwhile in Denmark.
Minimum wage for McDonalds employees: 20$+supplements. Big Mac $7
Brazilian minimum wage: 1,528BRL per month, or roughly 6.30 reais per hour.
Big Mac price: 24 reais, or 4 hours of minimum wage work.
A Big Mac is $5.19 in my McDonald’s app. Where is this $8 Big Mac?
Probably California but the minimum wage here for a McDonald's employee is $20 per hour. That's still more than 2 big Mac's per hour
It is under 6 dollars in 2024 though https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/
Now imagine servers on tips...
IMO some of them are just going to work for the shift meal and pinch whatever they can from the place - leftover food, toilet paper, utentils, etc.
All you can do when you're basically a slave..
The biggest indicator of American decline is actually how many hours of work it takes to earn one ounce of gold. In 1950- 46 hours 1956-35 hours 1968-22 hours Today- it is between 289 and 79 hours factoring in time and a half overtime. Minimum wage in America has lost between 84-93% of its value using this metric.
Right now, where I live in Canada, you can buy approximate 3.5 big macs per hour on minimum wage.
Not bad, but not great either.
and what about big PCs?
“Big Mac” now is forever cemented as a mean gay red pony in my mind… thanks, Tamers12345
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