Yes and no. Labor costs are being ignored, but they're not all that significant. If you add in even a relatively high minimum wage, the cost blurs out with any volume. Whether you cost them $7 for an hour or $14 is just the difference of a single wasted meal at current prices.

Profit and Loss sheets are messy. They're paying back of house, front of house, a manager, power, maintenance and rent, but then they're making dozens of meals an hour. They're paying 1/10 of the cost for raw ingredients.

Herein lies the rub:

In 2018, a fast food meal at a number of places for 4 ran about $30-$40; currently, it's closer to $60.

Tacobell still sells a meal for less than $7 with a drink and enough food to satiate an obese II adult. It's gone up maybe $1.50 since 2018.

Selection and quality have gone down. Most places have been understaffed since covid, they're paying less in wages, value menus are disappearing.

It would seem that a bunch of places took opportunities to raise their prices until the lines dissapeared. I remember a time, not long ago, if you went to a drive-through around dinner, you were going to be there for a while. McDonalds put in second lanes in most stores to handle the load.

I don't think I've been in a fast food line with more than 2 cars in a few years.

[–] saimen@feddit.org 5 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

Every cost is labour cost in the end. It's a bit off topic but was a interesting realisation for me. Every time you pay something you pay for another human's labour in the end.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Every cost is labour cost in the end. It’s a bit off topic but was a interesting realisation for me. Every time you pay something you pay for another human’s labour in the end.

nope. you also pay for the right to extract materials out of the ground (mining rights). that is typically a tax, paid to the state or local community.

and then there's company profits. where do these go?

[–] Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

When you pay rent. When you pay the bank. Most of paying is for labor, yes, a crazy amount more than most people realize. But the wealthy skim some off the top, and that portion isn't paying for labor.

[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Not only that, but you have to pay for their knowledge and expertise. Can my son do my job? Sure, because I trained him. Can he do it as good as I? Not even close, nor can he do it near as fast. When we go someplace that has a higher cost, but, let's just talk food, the quality of cooking, technique, etc is better, it's worth the extra cost, to a point. There is definitely the pay me more mentality in many places, but there is also definitely value in much of it.

Let's talk chicken. If you offer me a butchered chicken done by someone that was hired last week and it's being paid as such, compared to one that was prepared by a person that has been doing it for 10 years, but there was a 10 or 20% cost difference, it would be well worth it to pay more to make sure the job was done correctly.

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 points 1 hour ago

Isn't that just a justification for more expensive labour? (Like it's totally justified but it's still a labour cost)