in reply to feld

Companies like Walmart and McDonalds have historically paid minimum wage so that they can get their employees on benefits: it's a type of corporate welfare where the government functionally pays a huge amount of the employee's salary.

Two reasonable guesses:

First, something shifted so that this isn't viable anymore. McDonalds higher ups can't outright tell the franchise stores "yeah this is what's up, the jig's up, pay your employees more or you won't have employees." So they're asking the government to do it.

Second, McDonalds can pay more and is trying to squish notable competition that cannot.

in reply to CMD

@ceo_of_monoeye_dating "McDonalds" restaurants are usually not owned by the corporation, but are independent franchises. So it's *that* business owner that would need to be able to afford the wage increases.

Anyway, the reason is because their data shows people making less than $100k per year can't afford to eat there anymore.

fortune.com/2025/09/03/mcdonal…

@CMD
in reply to NonPlayableClown

@NonPlayableClown @ceo_of_monoeye_dating dude we went to Taco Bell a few weeks ago on a whim thinking "this will be cheap and quick, let's suffer the digestive consequences, it can't be that bad"

at the window they're like "your total is $42" and my brain glitched out

but I haven't voluntarily eaten McDonalds since... 2007? I usually get tricked into it by some family members once a year who are like "our shitty kids won't eat anything else, we HAVE to do lunch at McDonalds"