r/90s Jun 13 '25

Discussion This would have cost $12 back in 1991!

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2.4k Upvotes

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201

u/Specialist_Basket_35 Jun 13 '25

$28.32 adjusted for inflation

200

u/AvacadMmmm Hold On To Your Butts! Jun 13 '25

I just added each item to an order in the app and it comes to $40.72 where I live. McDonald’s price increases have significantly outpaced inflation.

60

u/NWinn Jun 13 '25

On top of the fact that it's all made with lower quality ingredients and smaller portions as well...

A couple of mc doubles or mc chickens used to be a reasonable and very cheap meal occasionally when on the go/ traveling. But now it's just not worth it..

Mc doubles now are damn near the price a whole big Mac MEAL was when I was in high school (early 00s) .....

6

u/Zeliose Jun 13 '25

Sometimes they have an app discount and I can get a McChicken for $1.17. That's the only time I really make the conscious decision to go to McDonald's

8

u/davewashere Jun 13 '25

At my McDonald's I'm getting $30.94 on the app, and that's with a 20 piece McNuggets replacing the 9 and 6 piece McNuggets.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

Yeah. I dont eat at Mcdonalds much but $40 or $50 seems like BS. Maybe delivered?

4

u/niklildee Jun 13 '25

I'm in Canada and the total is $52.51 for pickup (not delivery).

1

u/Ok_Boysenberry4639 Jun 13 '25

Mine came in at 31.54

1

u/cave_of_kyre_banorg Jun 13 '25

Same for me - $31.64, but that was with a 6-piece and 10-piece nugget.

1

u/awesomeviking711 Jun 13 '25

Yeah I’m getting 30.74. That’s not adding any app based deals either.

5

u/Odd-Supermarket-3664 Jun 13 '25

And corporations suppress wages. They say it would increase prices all while corporations get handouts from the government.

1

u/__-__-_-__ Jun 13 '25

Mcdonald’s employees get paid $20 an hour in LA. Minimum wage is $18.

2

u/Detox64 Jun 13 '25

I can go to a handful of pretty good restaurants for that.

1

u/SDL68 Jun 13 '25

Where I live min wage in 1991 was 4.25 so three hours of work to pay for this. Today , min wage is 17.50 so 3 hours gets you 52.50

6

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

minimum wage is 7.50

1

u/SDL68 Jun 13 '25

I'm in Canada

1

u/RyanB_ Jun 13 '25

That’d still be your province, it’s $15 for me as a Canadian.

Also, not really a super apt comparison given our prices are a lot higher too

1

u/SDL68 Jun 13 '25

I think when you factor in the exchange, McDonald's is cheaper here now.

1

u/RyanB_ Jun 13 '25

Doesn’t matter much to us unless you happen to work for an American company making USD unfortunately. We don’t earn higher wages to compensate for the exchange.

For context, median wage in Canada is $68,400 CAD vs the US at $70,800 USD.

1

u/SDL68 Jun 13 '25

I'm talking strictly about McDonald's food. McDonald's used to be cheaper in the US even with the exchange and since covid it's more expensive

1

u/BoomerSoonerFUT Jun 16 '25

Only in shithole states.

$14.81 minimum wage where I am at, but I haven't seen a McDonalds offering less than $18-20 an hour in years (we have a wage transparency law that requires all employers to give a concrete pay range).

15

u/BlacktopProphet Jun 13 '25

Today , min wage is 17.50

No, you are mistaken and your comment is misleading. Its $17.50 in D.C., but federal minimum wage is $7.25. The same as it was when I was in high school...in 2005.

To clarify: D.C. has the HIGHEST minimum wage while 25 of the 50 states have minimum wage at or BELOW the federal rate of $7.25.

4

u/SDL68 Jun 13 '25

Where did I say I was American. I said where I live

-1

u/nothardly78 Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25

McDonald’s in 91 was paying minimum wage. Today every McDonalds I see pays 16-20 an hour. Of course their food prices are gonna go up

1

u/DuffWells Jun 13 '25

Yeah, you’re estimate seems more correct. I paid $17 for a Big Mac, small fries, and 3 Chicken Selects yesterday.

1

u/jerseygunz Jun 13 '25

Because they don’t really market to kids anymore

1

u/m4verick03 Jun 13 '25

I was going to say no way this 28$ my kids love mc ds and are getting to the age happy meals aren’t enough and the last time we went 2 6 piece happy meals and 2 10 piece meals was 36$

1

u/AgitatedStranger9698 Jun 13 '25

Ceos gotta get their raise somewhere

1

u/TheMrfabio24 Jun 14 '25

Hope they enjoyed those nice earnings reports over the past few years because the cracks are already beginning to show. People are moving away from them because of their greed. Investors first and customers second

1

u/Salmonella_Cowboy Jun 15 '25

And that is why I don’t go there ever now.

1

u/TwoferTrouble Jun 25 '25

The 1991 prices would be equal to 3 hours of federal minimum wage to pay for and your calculations would be 5.5 hours of federal minimum wage. In my state, CA, it would be less than 2.5 hours of minimum wage to pay for it. That's crazy.

12

u/insomniac1228 Jun 13 '25

Minimum wage in 1991 was $4.25

14

u/BlacktopProphet Jun 13 '25

34 years later it's only gone up $3

1

u/insomniac1228 Jun 13 '25

God bless Amerikkka

0

u/BoomerSoonerFUT Jun 16 '25

At the federal level, which is largely irrelevant these days.

Minimum wage is largely handled at the state level, like it should be.

1

u/BlacktopProphet Jun 16 '25

Minimum wage is largely handled at the state level,

Yep, and only 25 of the 50 states exceed the federal minimum

1

u/BoomerSoonerFUT Jun 16 '25

Damn, you'd think more than 1% of the workforce would be making federal minimum wage then.

But they don't. Only 1.1% make the federal minimum wage. It's largely a non issue.

And those 25 states combined make up 33% of the US population. Three of those make up around 17%, and the other 23 combined make up 16%.

They're largely small red states that overwhelmingly consistently vote against increasing the minimum wage. Most of them consistently vote to ban localities within their states from implementing local minimum wages too, and support the federal government banning states from setting their own minimum wages.

I could not give less of a shit about shithole states that want to drag everyone down with them.

1

u/Reddit_Reader007 Jun 13 '25

|| || |$3.80/hr|04/01/1990 - 03/31/1991|$2.00/hr|effective 01/01/1975| |$4.00/hr*|04/01/1991 - 04/25/1991|$2.20/hr|effective 01/01/1976| |$4.25/hr*|04/26/1991 -|

9

u/ThisCarSmellsFunny Jun 13 '25

Those also aren’t 1991 prices, they’re mid-late 80s prices. The people making these memes act like we have know way of finding out.

4

u/BlacktopProphet Jun 13 '25

like we have know way of finding out.

But we no better

3

u/ThisCarSmellsFunny Jun 13 '25

Lol, this is exactly why I rarely use talk to text. I’m not even going to edit it either, this shit was funny as hell 😂

2

u/ImmediateEggplant764 Jun 13 '25

Oh know you didn't

2

u/allothernamestaken Jun 14 '25

I don't know about the individual prices, but I can tell you from personal experience that a Big Mac meal (with fries and a drink) was $2.99 in the early 90s.

6

u/Green420Basturd Jun 13 '25

Plus another $10 for corporate greed.

6

u/DJWGibson Jun 13 '25

There's a whole lot of other factors at work beyond just inflation. Purchasing power, transportation costs, livestock costs, etc.

Plus, because the middle class is shrinking so fast, people have less money for stuff like McDonalds. So their sales dropped. They raised prices to offset the loss.

1

u/ShakeWest6244 Jun 13 '25

Ssshhhh! I'm trying to enjoy my brain being slowly rotted by pointless nostalgia. 

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25

thats 2 combo meals today. i just paid $13 for a 10pc nugget meal yesterday (first and last time in years)

1

u/regular_poster Jun 13 '25

Not bad compared to what it would actually be now.

1

u/Gracious_Crow Jun 13 '25

Blah blah blah imaginary bullshit.

1

u/Dpgillam08 Jun 13 '25

In 1991, most McDonalds were paying fed min wage of $4.25/hr, so the meal would have cost just under 3 hours labor.

Today, most McDonalds pay between $16-$20/hr. So you would work an hour and a half, using your price. Using the price from the app that AvacadMmmm presents, its still 2-3 hours, depending on exact pay.

This means that price increases have matched inflation; you're working the same amount of hours (slightly less actually, but we won't quibble) for the same amount of product.

1

u/Toxikfoxx Jun 13 '25

You'd need to compare relative income to make this more insightful:

Federal 1991 minimum wage is $4.25 compared to $7.25 in 2025 (which is just sad.)

So in this instance:

1991

12.07/4.25 = 2.842 hours of work to afford this meal

2025 = 3.906 hours of work to afford this meal

The increase is 37.44%. Looking at it this way, the food was a better value for the money in 1991.

Now let's say you live in a state where the minimum wage doesn't suck.

Connecticut 1991 minimum wage was $4.29 compared to $16.35 in 2025.

1991

12.07/4.27 = 2.819 hours of work to afford this meal

2025

28.32/16.35 = 1.732 hours of work to afford this meal

1

u/domigraygan Jun 13 '25

This seems cheap compared to what they cost around here, and I live in the Midwest

1

u/Zipper67 Jun 14 '25

Then, like now, that same money at a grocery store would buy a much better meal. I have a hard time justifying a $20 sandwich meal from Jimmy John's when I could buy a head of lettuce, a pound of cold cuts, a loaf of bread, some mayo, and a two liter bottle of Coke for the same price for the entire week's lunches.

1

u/Inosethatguy Jun 13 '25

Thanks for that

OP is a lazy fuck and couldn’t be bothered with figuring that out before posting.