$17 for a burger, even if it really did look like the picture, which we all know it doesn’t, is way too much. No, thank you.
I pay $12/day to feed myself. I make all of my own meals at home, I haven’t eaten out since the pandemic. I formed the habit, and just kept cooking at home as prices got ridiculous. My diet is excellent, mostly fresh vegetables, and organic chicken.
American here, but this photo feels like a legit parody of American eating habits. If I were gonna make fun of us I would use this exact image LOL.
Gentrification came for flavortown.
Rent is now $4000/mth. No loitering.
LOL where can you find $4k/month? My dentist said her office rent in W. Seattle was $11k/mo.
Burgers are fine-dining now. Still trying to find cheap food that’s nutritious and doesn’t contain too much fiber for medical reasons. Eventually that will be fine dining prices too.
The CEO’s, shareholders and the 1% need to make more! There is no fucking way I am going to spend $17.00 for a fucking cheeseburger.
Yup. As soon as I see a fancy toothpick in the picture, I know I should just leave.
We’re not in flavor town anymore, Toto.
One of my parents said that steaks were 35 cents when they were kids.
I am not looking forward to my Walmart cheese & breadstick snacks costing $70 bucks for a set of five.
In Pulp Fiction (1994) John Travolta’s character freaks out over the “5$ milkshake”.
In 2025 a chocolate shake is 5.49 at the sonic near me. I thought that was expensive but compared to this thread apparently inflation on milkshakes hasn’t been to bad. Though I’m pretty sure you can get a $10 shake if you start asking them to add every kind of diabetes candy into it.
What 'Murica thinks flavour is: fat, salt, sugar, shit.
Cheeseburger with bacon is a quintessential white man food.
Muslims and Jews cannot eat it. Indians are forbidden too. Asians don’t tolerate lactose and other minorities can’t afford it nowadays.
When on some day you feel cultural superiority in your veins, order a cheeseburger with bacon and know that you are amongst the selected few who can savour this delicacy
Put on a Burger King hat too for a good measure and order it sitting in your SUV. Celebrate this wonderful country
The Christian Bible has the same restrictions about eating pigs, but they just ignore it. A lot of Jewish people in the US do as well.
Muslims and Jews cannot eat it
Those are religions, not races.
other minorities can’t afford it nowadays.
Because minorities are poor?
Asians don’t tolerate lactose
Neither do I, but I’m having that ice cream and destroying that toilet.
Stop being weird. It’s unnecessary.
I was jesting, isn’t that obvious? However, I am always in the mood for an internet argument ⌨️
It’s not reddit, people can be sarcastic without the /s.
Poe’s law got me on this one. I no longer see this viewpoint as extreme enough to be satire
Guess what will happen to food prices in the US when farmers cannot exploit cheap migrants anymore…
Not to worry - they’ll be replaced with children and prisoners and robots.
No problem, as salaries also trippled in that time
Tap for spoiler
/s
Maybe not tripled, but making 7.25-10/hour was pretty common in 2008. The standard today is 15-20/hour at fast food.
I’m aware this doesn’t justify tripling the price. Even 3x wages would not triple the cost of the burger.
Yet $7.25 is still the federal minimum wage today
Yea pretty fucked up.
They created like 40% more money supply in the span of a single year. It then rises at about 10% a year on average, due to a CPI that does adjustments at the whims of some entity whose goal seems to be to understate inflation.
Consider me spoiled 😢
$10 Aud gets you a proper burger in Oz at a bakery or takeaway spot, you’ll pay $20+ Aud inc chips/fries in a pub/bistro, but either way you have to tackle them to stop them putting fucking pickled beetroot on it first, dark times all round indeed…
Holy cow, where do you live that Burgers are still $10 anywhere.
Yeah local bakeries still do them for $10, proper fresh buns and salad, still do schnitzel rolls with proper chicken for that price too, not with a big processed chicken nugget pretending to be a schnitzel…
I am so curious what part of Oz you’re in, because absolutely nowhere is anything near those prices, where I am, but I am in an expensive city.
Central Coast NSW, there’s 2 Vietnamese bakeries and a tradies favourite all within 5mins from me…
Suburban fish and chip shops that have been around for 30 years and also sell either souvlaki or an assortment of chinese dishes.
Damn. I’m starting to really feel how expensive my city is.
I had a double smash cheeseburger for 9€ on friday in germany.
160g meat
Is that cheap, by current standards? I’m in Australia, and so is the commenter I asked, but where I am it’s unheard of for burgers to be much below $20.
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AI burger meat is my favorite.
That’s good, cause it’s all we’ll be able to afford in a few years.
You mean your cheese slices don’t have more than 4 points?
Wow, so I did tha math. The official inflation rate factors up to just over 1.5 (50% increase) over the past 16 years. But this meme suggests a factor of 3.58!!! (258% increase)
The official inflation rate doesn’t include food or energy. It’s ridiculous.
The most funny thing was the “I can’t eat an iPad” reply, when someone from the Fed tried to explain these mental gymnastics
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704893604576199113452719274
Food and products have 2.3x’d since just before covid started.
It does include food and energy, but they also separately report a “core” inflation that excludes those items because food and energy tend to go up and down.
Or up and less up
Looking at beef in particular, a pound of ground beef has gone up from $2.10/lb in 2008 to $6.20 in 2025.
Chicken breast, on the other hand, has gone from $3.50/lb to about $4.10.
Beef has been getting more expensive faster than inflation basically my whole life, while stuff like chicken, milk, and eggs have been volatile, jumping up and down at times, and stuff like rice and flour have long periods of stability with the occasional big permanent jump.
That chicken price is indicative of the increasing size and density of factory farms, which caused the bird flu epidemic in the first place.
It was on a famous show.
It’s prepared food, so the price also depends on wage increase and changes to tip structure in that state. Several states began fair wage for servers after 2008, so the gratuity may now be included in the price of the meal.
I would like to say, California instituted a $20 fast food minimum wage which was estimated to cause an 8% increase in overall wages (they already trend high there) but a 1.5% increase in menu prices. To my mind this tracks as wages are kind of small (too small) against ingredients, building lease, etc.
Granted, increasing the wages of everybody in the agricultural supply chain would probably have a bigger effect, but overall I think businesses tend to mcfucking lie about the impact of wage increases on consumer prices.
I’m more getting at tipped worker vs fair wages for servers. The minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hr, but tipped worker minimum wage is $2.13/hr. States that have shifted to fair wages now must pay their workers standard minimum wage. Most eateries in those states have increased their prices 15-20%, and inform customers that the gratuity is now included in the meal price. It’s no different on your wallet, but could account for some of the increase in price point depending on the location of the establishment.
