Senate Democrats attacked McDonald’s on Tuesday for price gouging while it continues to “grow” profits and serve the needs of customers.
The letter, written by Sens. Ron Wyden, Bob Casey, and Elizabeth Warren, underscores the success of former President Donald Trump’s campaign stop on Sunday when he worked a McDonald’s drive-thru window in Pennsylvania.
Images and video of the former president helping customers to McDonald’s finest foods nearly broke the internet. Many of Trump’s critics heralded the gesture as great retail politics and a stroke of political genius.
Senate Democrats, however, appeared very upset by Trump’s success.
In a letter addressed to McDonald’s Chief Executive Officer Chris Kempczinski, the senators sought information about the fast-food restaurant’s “increases in fast food prices over the last several years and seeking information regarding McDonald’s pricing decisions.”
The letter made no mention of the policies implemented by the Biden-Harris administration that fueled inflation.
The senators wrote:
While McDonald’s is not the only fast food restaurant that has increased prices significantly in recent years, its dominant market position as the largest fast food chain in the United States has an outsize impact on American consumers. While working families are trying to make ends meet, McDonald’s and its corporate counterparts have continued to grow their profits.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, fast food prices have consistently outpaced inflation,1 squeezing consumers who for decades were able to rely on restaurants like McDonald’s for a meal at a fair price. However, Americans are now leaving fast food establishments and are increasingly choosing to spend their food dollars on at-home consumption. Since 2020, the Consumer Price Index has increased by 20 percent, but McDonald’s may have increased its menu prices for certain items by substantially more. A recent analysis of six popular fast food chains (McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A, In-N-Out Burger, Burger King, and Jack in the Box) found that 27 out of 30 menu items experienced price increases that outpaced inflation.
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Corporate profits must not come at the expense of people’s ability to put food on the table. As we seek to investigate and understand the increased consumer costs in the economy, we hope McDonald’s will help us to understand why its prices have risen so high.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
