Grocery, Housing & Daycare Prices & Working Class Americans

[StrangePackage]

McDonald’s to Cut Combo-Meal Prices After Convincing Franchisees​

Burger chain working to improve its affordability, after consumers recoiled from escalating restaurant menu prices​

—> https://www.wsj.com/business/hospit...1?st=KGeALd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

“… After pitching operators on the plan, McDonald’s and its U.S. franchisees agreed to keep the cost of eight popular combo meals 15% below the sum of the individual items’ prices, according to company materials viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The chain also will run $5 breakfast and $8 Big Mac and McNugget combo-meal specials later this year, marketing them as Extra Value Meals.

The move is part of the chain’s push to restore its reputation for affordability, which has taken a hit with cash-strapped consumers. McDonald’s has said that its new McValue deal menu is helping, but many consumers still feel the chain’s menu prices overall are too high.…”

Fast food is stupidly expensive. I got a single item from Taco Bell yesterday for lunch and it was more than 9 dollars after tax. I could've gotten more food and a higher quality for roughly the same price at an actual Mexican restaurant.

 

[CFordUNC]

Donald Trump is not responsible for the gradually increasing price of commodities and items over time – that’s routine inflation. He’s also not responsible for the significant uptick in the cost of everything that occurred a couple of years ago as a direct result of the global pandemic that choked supply chains.

However, he is absolutely positively fully responsible for the fact that prices on quite literally everything are skyrocketing right now as a direct result of his spectacularly disastrous economic policies. The price increases we are seeing are not typical inflation- they are a direct response from companies who are passing along extraordinarily burdensome price increases to consumers as a direct result of the tariff taxes these companies are being forced to pay. Every single dumb shitbird who whined and cried and pissed and moaned about inflation and increased prices under Joe Biden, and who then turned around and voted for the guy who very explicitly told them on the campaign trail that he was going to slap tariffs on literally everything and everyone, are the ones responsible for this unaffordable environment in which we find ourselves.

I’m thankful – beyond thankful – to be in a position now where I don’t really pay a second thought to the price at the gas pump or the price at the grocery store check out or the price on the restaurant check or whatever. I certainly notice it, especially at the grocery store where these days it seems virtually impossible to get out of there without paying $100 for maybe two grocery bags worth of items, but I don’t really give it a second thought. I cannot imagine what it must be like right now for people who are in way less fortunate financial situations – I truly have no idea how they are making ends meet. And that includes the vast majority of my extended family; I have no idea how any of them are making ends meet, but I do know exactly who they all voted for. But I don’t expect many, if any, MAGAs to have enough self-awareness or enough intellectual honesty- if they did have such, they would not be MAGAs- to recognize or admit that what they voted for was economic calamity. But it’s exactly what they are getting, and what we are all getting.

It’s so funny to me that the same people who want to beat their chests about how bigly patriotic they are, and how America is the greatest country in the history of every country that ever country’d, are the same exact ones that are getting chewed up and spit out by a country that has decided that making sure that billionaires don’t have to pay taxes, but teachers should make $40,000 a year and have to spend money on their own classroom supplies, or that a dual working household making the median US household income is forced to put things back in the cart at the grocery store because they can’t afford it, or that we can’t afford to provide healthcare or education, etc.

 

[CFordUNC]

 

[altmin]

Turns out that WSJ has an interactive chart reflecting staggering daycare costs today:

From $24,000 to $147,000: How Much Daycare Costs Across America​

For working parents, the first five years of a child’s life are often the most financially draining. Explore this interactive map to see how costs vary around the U.S.​

—> https://www.wsj.com/personal-financ...0?st=jhFYG7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink





Note these figures are an aggregate FIVE YEARS of day care, not cost per year.

meanwhile daycare workers are criminally underpaid

 

[nycfan]

meanwhile daycare workers are criminally underpaid

Yep, which is addressed a bit in the longer WSJ story.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the solution is.

 

[superrific]

However, he is absolutely positively fully responsible for the fact that prices on quite literally everything are skyrocketing right now as a direct result of his spectacularly disastrous economic policies. The price increases we are seeing are not typical inflation- they are a direct response from companies who are passing along extraordinarily burdensome price increases to consumers as a direct result of the tariff taxes these companies are being forced to pay.

And the deportation of the work force.

 

[altmin]

Yep, which is addressed a bit in the longer WSJ story.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the solution is.

Somehow there is no good balance on supply and demand in childcare. I can't speak to the larger world, but here in NS they implemented a need blind pre-school for all program in the province a few years ago, which was supposed to help daycares, but it made things worse. The school systems hoovered up a bunch of PreK educators by offering higher wages, draining the supply of workers for daycares. These day cares still had to hire workers for the kids too young for pre-school. They also have stricter ratio requirements than the government run pre-K so where as schools could have 1 teacher for like 20 kids, they needed a for like 7. They had to raise their wages to hire less qualified people in greater numbers all while dealing with the loss of the income from parents who could afford pre-K more easily than others. In the end the whole daycare industry needed a bailout because they couldn't afford to stay open and were vital for parents of 3 year olds and younger.

Our daughter went into pre-K the year this program started. We decided to keep her at her daycare because we loved the program and kind of saw what was about to happen. In the end, her 3 year-old toddler group of 20 kids was down to 4 kids when the pre-K year kicked in and the daycare had to hire internationally because they couldn't replace the workers who went into the school system one. They had to cut the number of 3 year olds and younger they took in because they couldn't maintain the ratio and it took a while for the international work permits to go through. The place survived, but only because they pivoted their normal summer care to a more affluent aimed "Forest School" for their summer camp, where they could charge more for special outdoor programs. They were lucky as they are on a nice wooded lot across from the ocean. Urban daycares couldn't pull off things like that.

It's such a delicate system that seems to always be in the process of crashing.

 

[nycfan]

Turns out veggie wholesale prices fluctuate wildly as a pretty regular occurrence, though it is highly seasonal and this was historically high for a summer month …

https://www.axios.com/2025/08/14/inflation-vegetables-ppi

 

[nycfan]

Turns out veggie wholesale prices fluctuate wildly as a pretty regular occurrence, though it is highly seasonal and this was historically high for a summer month …

https://www.axios.com/2025/08/14/inflation-vegetables-ppi

A lot of smaller increases but fueled by some massive jumps in leafy green veggies:

Jul 2025, Goods: Farm Products | FRED | St. Louis Fed

Release Table for Jul 2025, Goods: Farm Products. FRED: Download, graph, and track economic data.

fred.stlouisfed.org

Lettuce +133%
Spinach +157%

From what I can tell, 90% of lettuce and spinach sold in the USA comes from Arizona and California. Which points more to immigration crackdown and/or drought or some disease of leafy veggies there than tariffs.

Spinach, Lettuce Get the Inflation Treatment - The Food Institute

Lettuce and spinach prices soar amid tariffs, labor shortages, and climate stress—fueling fresh produce inflation and supply chain concerns.

foodinstitute.com

 

[superrific]

A lot of smaller increases but fueled by some massive jumps in leafy green veggies:

Jul 2025, Goods: Farm Products | FRED | St. Louis Fed

Release Table for Jul 2025, Goods: Farm Products. FRED: Download, graph, and track economic data.

fred.stlouisfed.org

Lettuce +133%
Spinach +157%

From what I can tell, 90% of lettuce and spinach sold in the USA comes from Arizona and California. Which points more to immigration crackdown and/or drought or some disease of leafy veggies there than tariffs.

Spinach, Lettuce Get the Inflation Treatment - The Food Institute

Lettuce and spinach prices soar amid tariffs, labor shortages, and climate stress—fueling fresh produce inflation and supply chain concerns.

foodinstitute.com

I'm no farmer, so my insight is probably crude at best -- but to me, that list says, "if it's harvested by machine, it's the same; if it's harvested by people, it jumped way up in price."

 

[nycfan]

A lot of smaller increases but fueled by some massive jumps in leafy green veggies:

Jul 2025, Goods: Farm Products | FRED | St. Louis Fed

Release Table for Jul 2025, Goods: Farm Products. FRED: Download, graph, and track economic data.

fred.stlouisfed.org

Lettuce +133%
Spinach +157%

From what I can tell, 90% of lettuce and spinach sold in the USA comes from Arizona and California. Which points more to immigration crackdown and/or drought or some disease of leafy veggies there than tariffs.

Spinach, Lettuce Get the Inflation Treatment - The Food Institute

Lettuce and spinach prices soar amid tariffs, labor shortages, and climate stress—fueling fresh produce inflation and supply chain concerns.

foodinstitute.com