$3 for a single McDonald's hash brown? Some customers are fed up and pushing back

McDonald’s used to be viable because it was shit, but at least it was cheap. Now it’s just shit. I haven’t gone of my own will in years, only with other people who wanted it. $3 for a hash brown is absurd.

There's a burger place near me which makes a great burger - good quality ingredients, interesting toppings, great fries and they're cheaper than McDonalds. Given McDonald's prices on ingredients will be substantially cheaper, and their volume higher, this is just pure greed.

It's a good thing we haven't raised the Minimum Wage! Otherwise they may have Raised their prices!

"Some customers are fed up and pushing back"

But continuing to buy things from them, yeah? Companies are not going to change until people stop buying from them.

Nobody needs McDonald's. I'm not even sure most people actually want McDonald's. Just stop going, seriously.

I can't believe that the US Government believes that a little more than two McDonald's hash browns are worth one hour's work.

Fuck that. That isn't dignity.

I worked for McDs in high school, around 2008. Big Mac meal used to be $6.08 with tax, $1 menu used to be $1.06 with tax. I went the other day and was shocked to see how much everything costs now plus I have to order via a screen (which I find bizarre, but maybe I'm just old now).

I also feel like working there used to be kind of fun. I'd take the order from the drive thru/take the money, kitchen would secretly prioritize drive thru orders (everything is timed), and window person would get the order together. Now it seems like they take 1 or 2 drive thru orders at a time and make the line wait until those are done.

Seems like fewer people working & prices went up - and I'm sure those poor folks working are making minimum wage. It's just sad all around.

It is so sickening how capitalism normalizes stripping people of their humanity

the customer is tolerating it well

Sure am! It's been over four years since I've had McDonalds (or any other fast food restaurant). Prices are absurd and the food is meh at best.

Just uh... don't eat there?

Sunday morning, fire up the air fryer and park just outside of McD's. Selling hashbrowns at $1 a pop.

It's easy to tolerate price increases on products when you don't buy that product. The thing that concerns me though, is that if people stop buying McDonald's and instead buy canned beans... is my chili going to get more expensive because McDonald's wants 3 dollar hash browns? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes.

It's one hash brown Michael, what could it cost?

Inflation and wage theft are absolutely out of control in this country. I'm a barista. My store makes $1600 in a eight-hour day. Mine and all of my coworker's wage in there probably adds up to about $50/hour on average. So the profit margin is ridiculous. And these businesses have the gall to think they can make MORE MONEY. No, fuck you. At some point the human beings doing the hard work need to get a bigger cut.

I actually don’t hate the burgers McDonald’s has now. They are hot, and often hit the spot for me.

HOWEVER, a double quarter pounder meal is now like $10, and it’s just not worth it when I have other options next door or across the street that sell better food for about the same price.

LOL McDonald's hasn't seen my shadow in 10 years at least

Three bucks for a hash brown? You know Simplot sells packs of ten for four dollars, right? And you can cook them on a stovetop with a tablespoon of vegetable oil, right? Hell, if you're desperate, you could even throw a pair into the toaster, although they won't taste nearly as good that way.

Unless pushing back means not shopping at McDonald's, then it doesn't matter

Fun fact: In Germany, the big US fast food companies are in a constant price war. They hand out vouchers at least once a week and offer big discounts online and in their apps. Because if they didn't their restaurants would be utterly empty. For the price of €12 for a Big Mac menu, I can go straight to a pretty good restaurant and have a Schnitzel with French Fries, a salad and a beer.

Especially Burger King and McDonalds are doing that all day. Subway and KFC a lot less.

Then there are Turkish and German fast food restaurants. They often have prices so low they simply don't have to lower then to beat the US chains. And to be honest, before I buy a burger for €5 I buy a Kebab or Shawarma which beat every burger in taste and amount of food. German fast food restaurants often sell grilled chicken, all sorts of fish, fried sausages and so on. And yes, we consider Pizza German Food nowadays. And the Italians agree, especially when talking about Pine-Apple Pizza or Pizza with pulled pork. They are usually cheaper than anyone else and the food is huge and easy to eat fast. German Fast Food makes all others look like slow food, you can easily stuff yourself in two minutes.

Some prices:

-The Croatian canteen in our town hall serves good Balkan cuisine from €5. A glass of tap water for €0.50. And it is a nice place, not looking like a canteen at all. Tips are included in these prices.

-I have a ton of vouchers of 50% voucher for Chicken McNuggets, Big Macs and Salads. I don't visit McDonalds too often as they require to order from a needless complicated touch screen but when I do I sometimes take a voucher "Two Big Macs for €5".

-a company I work for sometimes orders the "business menu" from Burger King which is something like "20 burgers of your choice and 2kg of fries" for €70. As the boss often invites his worker I am just happy with whatever I get.

-the local furniture store offers 50% vouchers for a a complete fish dish on Friday for €5 in his nice restaurant.

-they also offer Chinese and German Food often at 50% vouchers which equals to €4-€5 for a complete meal. And every day they have some cheap East European soup dishes like Borscht, Flaczki, Gulasch and so on for €2-3 and it is always a HUGE amount of food.

Seriously, if you open your eyes you would be surprised how many really cheap and great restaurants are around.

Just think of all the hundreds of millions of people who won't be affected by this because they refuse to eat at MacDonald's regardless of their prices.

Y'all aren't boycotting?

I heard about this and lmao no deal mcdicks.

Hash brown is 99 cents. Figure it out. We can see your market value.

I vow to not buy a McDonald's hash brown until it is below $1

Don't mind the prices as long as the quality is there. All of the fast food chains in my area have tanked in quality. Except for Five Guys.

That's the McConomy

(badum tsst)

True, but fuck KSL, it's a Mormon-owned entity.

McDonald's is a waste of time

As someone who works in a mom and pop restaurant, I understand this. McDonalds is huge and buys/manufactures in bulk, sure, so their prices are gonna be cheaper, but their costs are still going up like the rest of us. It kills me to keep seeing our menu updates, but food is fucking expensive now. I'm not saying that McDonalds isn't pulling down a tidy profit, and if food costs dropped they probably wouldn't drop their price, but I don't put the price increase solely on them. Food costs are rising all over, and it's killing the business. I have a spreadsheet from 6 years ago when I first started analyzing our costs, and my most recent sheet shows anywhere between 150 and 200% increase across the board. That's absurd. So, blame McDonalds for whatever you want, I won't stop you, but make sure to aim some hate at the production side of things as well.

They're not talking about human beings.

They said "consumer." Which they don't see as human, only as meat with eyes.

This is how supply and demand and inflation are supposed to work. Prices get inflated because the supply is low and the demand is high. We’re now at the tipping point where the market is saying it’s too much. We should have been saying it was too much, via our wallets, years ago.

Cry all you want about corporate greed but it’s largely unregulated so the supply for their wallet still counts as supply. If you’re still paying for it, they’re going to keep raising the prices. What’s something worth? What someone will pay for it.

Why is beef still expensive? Because people keep buying it. https://www.marketplace.org/2024/01/10/if-inflation-slowed-down-in-2023-why-is-my-grocery-bill-so-high/

I’m so mad about it I haven’t been there in a decade.

I stopped eating fast food, oh… shit, almost 20 years ago.

these things, though. CRACK. these and sausage egg McMuffins. once a year on my birthday. I’ll pay whatever for them.

edit: before you even… I’ve tried finding the ingredients elsewhere and replicating them— it’s impossible!

McDs is one of a handful of optuons I have so I cant really boycott; however, today I found a dastardly trick: the order kiosks suddenly switched medium and large so you will accidentally order the large size. Almost got me, but not quite

Not for me. My fast food intake has drastically shrank. Better for my health anyway

My favorite Korean restaurant raised prices twice in a year. It went from $16 to $19 to $22 for a box of Korean fried chicken.

Where the big companies can handle it (and at times, are the ones doing it), mom and pop shops are getting fucked and have to raise prices too.

Simple solution seems to be just eat the rich.

Many other chain restaurants have increased their prices too.

Even smaller ones here, have gone crazy:

16" pepperoni pizza, 26.99

What I hate most is that they removed the mcchicken biscuit... makes no sense for me to go there for breakfast now

If you have an alternative to McDonalds and you still eat McDonalds anyway, get some self-respect.

For the longest time I knew fast food junk was not good for you so I ate less of it.

During the pandemic I completely avoided fast food.

It's been three years now and I haven't gone to any fast food at all.

Now I can't rationalize eating it any more.

It isn't healthy, it isn't food, it has no nutrition, it has too much of the things that degrade your health. It's also prepared by people being paid as little as possible to maximize the profit to the people who do the least in the transaction.

From a health point of view is like investing in degrading your body .... it's like investing in rust for your car or pouring tiny amounts of water or sugar in your gas tank ... it's paying a premium for an unhealthy body in the future.

And now it costs more ... it costs more to ruin your health. So you spend a lot of money now to ruin your health and then spend a lot more money to fix your unhealthy self when you get older.

When you look at it over a lifetime, it's far cheaper to just not eat fast food

While McD is gouging their customers hard, I'm still considering restaurants as a luxury.

I'll do my hashbrowns in the toaster-oven in the morning and make myself a "McMuffin" at home for dirt-cheap.

Like any other businesses you won't make them change their price unless their cashflow is impacted. Want to send a clear message? Stop going, and you may end up not coming back later because you'll see all the money you wasted. Or at least make it a rare treat, not a habit.

I stopped buying the hash browns years ago because of how overpriced they are. They are worth no more than 50 cents.

Enshitificaion, complete!

I'm overweight, not especially healthy, and even back in the day when I was dirt poor and on heroin (I'm good now, for 17 years, thanks) I never ate that shit. It just made me miserable every time and my stomach was never full. Even simple sugar cubes were a better short term solution back then, used to put 12 in my coffee.

One meal there equals 3 meals if I cook at home, and the bonus double plus good is: I don't feel like I want to barf and/or shit my pants.

McDonalds shakes and icecream ABSOLUTELY make me shit mud, so I have no idea what's going on there, but no other fast food makes me as miserable as McDs and no I'm not lactose intolerant.

Good for the customers.

Someone needs to organize a boycott.

I admit it's been a while since I've been to a McDonalds, but it can't have been more than a couple of years and hash browns were definitely way less than that. Maybe a dollar.

Sausage biscuit is still a buck. I’m kinda shocked it’s stayed that cheap.

I've had Mcdick's once in the last 2 decades, and that was easily 5 years ago. It wasn't as good as I remembered.

Good, I'm angering the fat-asses. Eat more McDonalds, McFatties.

I'm gonna be in the minority here but I see this as a good thing for fast food prices to be high. Shouldn't we all be advocating and pushing more for a healthier alternative? Cook our own meals, know what's nutritious, stop giving junk food companies our money when they systematically have been a negative on our health for years. I'll never understand why there is such a fight to protect and have cheap prices for fast food joints when they are and have been anything but healthy.

People target others with criticism like how we don't control their money and their eating habits. Well guess what, I've got news for you. Don't complain about why you're paying out the ass for insulin, for medical costs and everything in between because of your lack of self-control that is tied to your eating habits by continuing to go to these "restaurants".

And I'm going to throw a stone also say that I'm not doing myself better since I go out to chinese buffets. But in my defense, I get far more out of them than I would being handed a greasy bag with everything shoved in while the food quality and texture all say depression and guilt.