• 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    Perhaps the most egregious part of this is that the graph shows dollar expenditures, not meals bought.

    • A store in 2014 sells 1000 hamburgers at $5 each = $5000 in expenditures
    • Same store in 2024 sells 800 hamburgers at $10 each = $8000 in expenditures

    It’s common for companies to raise prices to increase revenue, even if raising prices results in fewer people buying your product. This shit is taught in high school economics. Absolutely nothing here shows anything about how many people can afford fast food.

    • Also, the other thing is to look at with this is people eating out generally, there could also be the phenomena of middle class people responding to increased prices by eating fast food more to substitute more expensive take out options.

      • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        5 months ago

        Another factor is people could generally be living further from work now than 10 years ago due to higher rents. Meaning they’re more likely to eat a meal near their office while having less time to cook, hence needing fast food.

        • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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          5 months ago

          This was kind of my first thought. I eat out more when I’m stressed because of the comfort of eating out and the lack of energy to cook for myself, even if it puts me in a worse economic situation. Sometimes you have to cope just to keep alive. Maybe we can coin the term “copeanomics” to describe increased sales of “luxury” items in times of increased societal instability.