Publisher: “There may be other factors, such as wage increases, but it makes no sense.”
Purchase a limited edition burger instead of a Big Mac… White House Digital Strategy Office confirmed
Despite economic stability, half of the people say, “Biden policies worsen the economic situation.”
A video pointing out the excessively high prices of Big Macs last year has recently become a hot topic online.
According to CNN and the Washington Post on the 27th (local time), at the end of last year, TikTok user Topper Olive paid $16.10 (about 20,000 won) for a hamburger, French fries, and a drink at a McDonald’s store in Idaho. I uploaded the paid video.
He showed a receipt in the video and said, “I know there is a shortage of workers. “I know there are many other factors, such as wage increases,” he said. “But $16?… “It makes no sense,” he said.
◆Fake price videos continue to spread on social media
Even now, a year later, this video is being re-circulated on TikTok, the American community site Reddit, the New York Post, and Newsmax.
Sure, fast food prices have risen along with everything else over the past few years, but not as much as you can see in this TikTok video. In fact, the burger that appears in the video is not McDonald’s regular menu item, but a ‘Smoky Double Quarter Pounder’ with bacon and cheese, and was a kind of limited edition product.
It is unclear whether Olive checked the price of this special menu item before ordering. He did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the 27th.
According to the British business magazine The Economist, the average price of a Big Mac in the United States this summer was $5.58 (about 7,300 won). This is an increase of about 75 cents from January 2020, just before the pandemic began. Because most McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. are independently operated, prices vary by location.
◆Incorrect information obscures positive indicators… White House ‘struggling’
CNN reported that this incident clearly shows the current state of the U.S. economy. The proliferation of fake price videos has become an increasingly troubling problem for Democratic politicians and economists in the United States, who have failed to convey the message that the economy is actually doing well.
The ‘McDonald’s $16 Big Mac incident’, which seemed like a one-time incident, was also delivered to the White House Digital Strategy Office. This is one of the exaggerated claims about the economy that the Biden administration is struggling to respond to, the WP reported.
The U.S. economic indicators over the past three years are one of the things President Joe Biden can be most proud of. Consumer spending, the biggest driver of the U.S. economy, led U.S. gross domestic product to record an annual growth rate of nearly 5% last quarter, more than double the previous quarter.
Additionally, the labor market, where the unemployment rate has been below 4% for about two years, suggests that it is giving workers a sense of security about their future wages.
But polls show that American voters are not feeling the good news that economists have seen in the data.
In a CNN poll released earlier this month, 72% of all Americans said that the current situation in the United States is bad. Additionally, in a CNN poll released last September, 58% said President Biden’s policies had worsened economic conditions.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.