Two Quarters

Pithy sayings are one thing; saving the world is another. And things like this irk me because they lack enough context to be actionable. This isn't the first time that someone has made the point that if only hamburgers were more expensive, the world would be a better place.

But when the picture says "I don't know about you," I wonder who they're speaking to. Me? I don't eat hamburgers very often. They're calorie carpet bombs. I might have one on the order of two to three times a year. But sure, I'm not all that price-sensitive when I go out for a hamburger. And I tend to go to places like Five Guys, which have fairly high prices for their burgers in the first place. So I doubt that I'd really notice an extra 50¢.

The question, however, is are the regular customers of fast-food places as dismissive of the retail prices as I am? Many McDonald's customers, as I understand it, are not. They're in the market for cheap food, and adding 50¢ to the price of each burger would likely change their food buying habits. And while some people would applaud that, I don't know how much that helps out hypothetical fast-food worker who needs two other jobs.

In the end, a better solution might be to pay more for other labor intensive work; things that pay better, yet don't make it to the level of being considered highly skilled work. fast-food work pays poorly because the skills needed are easy to come by; they can be trained fairly easily. And there are a lot of people who are willing to take those jobs. Giving as many of those people as possible other alternatives might lower the supply of labor, and thus require employers to raise wages. Although, to be sure, it could simply result in more immigrant labor being used. Americans are, after all, price sensitive. And they're likely to stay that way.