<story><title>The fast-food workers’ season of rebellion</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/rebellion-mcdonalds-bradford-pa/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>silisili</author><text>It&amp;#x27;ll be interesting to watch this play out.  As someone who eats way more fast food than he should(once a week on avg), I&amp;#x27;ve noticed this big time.&lt;p&gt;I was in Savannah this summer and had to go to 3 different places to find one even serving.  So many places had one employee taking orders and cooking, both.  Even Chik Fil A only had 2 people working, and a 45 minute wait.&lt;p&gt;The BK near me, open til 12, has totally random hours, and is often closed by 7.  The Arby&amp;#x27;s is staffed by people who give food first and act weird when you stare because you need to pay still.  Corporate?  They don&amp;#x27;t care.  I&amp;#x27;ve tried to contact BK twice about a gross overbilling - they just don&amp;#x27;t care and don&amp;#x27;t respond.  The credit card company said they never even replied to their inquiries.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s all cheap food, and I don&amp;#x27;t blame the workers at all.  Fast food work is awful.  I&amp;#x27;m just curious how all of this is going to end.  People aren&amp;#x27;t going to pay 8 dollars for a big mac, and people aren&amp;#x27;t going to work at McD for minimum wage.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>n8cpdx</author><text>&amp;gt; People aren&amp;#x27;t going to pay 8 dollars for a big mac&lt;p&gt;I think people used to say this about Starbucks, where you might pay close to $8 for just the drink.&lt;p&gt;Fast food can probably save itself by going premium (as Starbucks did, although I don’t know if they are still considered premium) and raising prices and quality. McDonald’s has made that play in the past with the pivot to McCafé and the nicer restaurant design that is now predominant.&lt;p&gt;What may have to go away is the idea of fast food as something that is attainable for just about everyone. I remember when I was much younger and McDonald’s was a treat - we didn’t have much spare money but my parents could make McDonald’s happen occasionally.&lt;p&gt;Nowadays I’m totally price insensitive and happy to pay for DoorDash to deliver McDonald’s and tip handsomely. The people who don’t have software jobs or a similar tier probably can’t. Big business will be fine regardless, and if they can’t make it work, the leadership is not worthy of their overpriced MBAs.&lt;p&gt;I worry about the lower classes though. An under appreciated (for the wealthy HN reader) aspect of the relative success of American development is the broad accessibility of luxuries to the masses. Even the poor masses. If you (dear reader) don’t recognize a fast food meal as a luxury, you are blind to the real consequences of what is unfolding. I understand the desire to cater to labor, but ultimately there are far more consumers than laborers (by definition - all human laborers are also consumers). The grand economic experiment of yanking away the _one_ aspect of the American project (abundance) that has until now been continuing to succeed will have consequences. Not for me, but for the people you think of when you think of labor.</text></comment>
<story><title>The fast-food workers’ season of rebellion</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/rebellion-mcdonalds-bradford-pa/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>silisili</author><text>It&amp;#x27;ll be interesting to watch this play out.  As someone who eats way more fast food than he should(once a week on avg), I&amp;#x27;ve noticed this big time.&lt;p&gt;I was in Savannah this summer and had to go to 3 different places to find one even serving.  So many places had one employee taking orders and cooking, both.  Even Chik Fil A only had 2 people working, and a 45 minute wait.&lt;p&gt;The BK near me, open til 12, has totally random hours, and is often closed by 7.  The Arby&amp;#x27;s is staffed by people who give food first and act weird when you stare because you need to pay still.  Corporate?  They don&amp;#x27;t care.  I&amp;#x27;ve tried to contact BK twice about a gross overbilling - they just don&amp;#x27;t care and don&amp;#x27;t respond.  The credit card company said they never even replied to their inquiries.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s all cheap food, and I don&amp;#x27;t blame the workers at all.  Fast food work is awful.  I&amp;#x27;m just curious how all of this is going to end.  People aren&amp;#x27;t going to pay 8 dollars for a big mac, and people aren&amp;#x27;t going to work at McD for minimum wage.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ghaff</author><text>A lot of services used by middle class and even upper middle class people essentially depend on wage differentials.&lt;p&gt;Compare the level of home personal services that people in the US have compared to Southeast Asia for example. American do use gig services and tradespeople, but even lawn services, housecleaners, etc. aren&amp;#x27;t all &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; common. I use the latter two as lightly as possible and I view them as something of a luxury&amp;#x2F;indulgence. And certainly people mostly don&amp;#x27;t have personal chefs and that sort of thing.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that hard to imagine even fast food becoming more of a luxury good--although something like my local pizza place that I maybe go to every few weeks seems to be mostly high schoolers so maybe there&amp;#x27;s still a lower wage demographic that seems reasonable to be lower.&lt;p&gt;But, yeah, I mostly get takeout there because I&amp;#x27;m lazy and if prices doubled, I&amp;#x27;d just make more at home.</text></comment>