The gaslighting bothers me the most. “The soft landing worked! The economy is great! Look at all these jobs!” Are they good jobs? Do they pay enough to live? Why has the price of everything gone up so much? It’s eerie being lied to on such a massive scale like this. Very much a superb example of “don’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining.”

I know what a crab being brought to boil feels like now.

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Not a meal - that's just the burger. $8.30 AUD (5.42usd). Ridiculous.

Corporate greedflation.

Hey now, that's just not true (!)

If you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, work an extra shift, maybe sell some things you don't need, you can afford a McChicken Sandwich (!)

I am and old millennial and have pretty much considered my wife and I somewhat upper middle class. We never paid attention to grocery prices, took a vacation every year and were able to put away money for retirement. And while I am fortunate enough to still be doing well, that comfort and buffer we had has all but dissappeared in the pandemic.

Half decade sounds longer than 5 years. Someone could have started highschool, and by the end of highschool be in a completely different price market than before. 5 years is way too quick for these things to change that much.

I buy those dollar store packages of refried beans and rice, and cans of mixed vegetables. I put them in individual containers and freeze them to take to work for lunch. It's pretty cheap, and it makes me feel a lot fuller than anything I could buy at a convenience store or restaurant.

It's also vegan and gluten free (I have celiac and severe lactose intolerance)

Not even 15 minutes ago I was in a McDonald’s drive-thru. The only thing I ordered was a Single Cheeseburger, the cost was $3.59…. I told them never mind and came home and made pasta instead. Absolutely ridiculous that a single patty burger from there could cost so much.

Of course, it's cheaper to cook at home. But the McChicken is, like the whole industry that is to blame for it's existance, a serious threat to our physical health and thus to be avoided at any cost.

And they can get away with it because your average voter only cares about whatever culture war nonsense Fox tells them to be angry about

"Idc about cost of living nonsense when there's migrants caravans at the boarder and kids are being transed!!!!!!!!"

The thing that gets me, is that since 2018, I can confidently say that my wage has not even nearly tripled... It's barely even ~40% higher, and I've been on a fairly steady upward path, but the fucking McChicken has increased by almost triple.

I could not give fewer shits about the numerical prices. It's the relative price that annoys me. A trip to McDonald's (or realistically, anywhere) is that much more of a percentage of my paycheque.

And the icing on this shit-filled cake is that productivity has been on a steady incline the entire time. So we're doing more work, for the same wages, and prices continue to inflate.

Where is it all going? (Isn't it obvious)

Kind of hate posts like this. Yes! Inflation is happening and bad. And yes! The McChicken (and a lot of fast food value options) have soared in price in recent years. But trying to take that and frame it as “look at this… it’s so obvious the government is lying to us and overall inflation is actually over 100%” Is just ignorant nonsense and it tends to play into conspiratorial minds who don’t actually have any experience in economics or data collection.

You can hate the federal government all you want. Really. I totally get it. But they are unfortunately really good at data collection.

I love burgers but I don't get to have them anymore from anywhere because costs skyrocketed and my income didn't. McDonald's even stopped being affordable a while ago. In Canada the price of a McDouble, at least last time I checked near me, was $4. For a McDouble.

I just eat ramen and dream of burgers.

$1 in January of 2018 has the same buying power as...$1.24 in December of 2023. "The price of everything" did not increased 100%, it increased 24%.

That also sucks, and you don't have to lie about it to make your point.

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=201801&year2=202312

BuT tHe EcOnOmY iS bOoMiNg!

I used to love getting the dollar menu stuff from McDonald’s and idk if it’s that I turned 30 and suddenly started feeling grumpy about everything but I refuse to go there now that their prices are like this for a “value menu”.

Not only has the price of the McDonalds hash brown increased, the size portion has decreased.

This seems like a bad example, there is a good video by modern MBA on taco bells value menu that mentions McDonald's losing money with the dollar menu