this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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Man over the last few years prices around me went up way higher than that and nobody got a raise so...
A few years ago a dollar would get you a double-cheeseburger at the McDonald's down the street from my office. Now it will get you 30% of a hash brown.
The employees make the same now as they did before.
Oh shit remember Dollar Menus?
Pretty much every fast food place had a $1 menu for awhile, full of cheap stuff like single cheeseburgers and small fries. You could spend $3-4 and get quite a bit of food for an adult!
I remember when I visited the USA as a child in 2000 and handed over $1 for the "$1 cheeseburger" and was told no, it's not a dollar, thats the price excluding tax...
Why the fuck does the sign say $1 if its not $1! 🤦🤦🤦
Boring but sensible answer to lots of versions of the same basic question (ISP/telephone line quotes, retail prices, etc):
The US is made up of tens of thousands of mini-jurisdictions, each with their own unique rules and regulations. Sometimes taxes, permits, fees, etc change from place to place and the price is going to be different from one place to another. When you have a national-level marketing department, it's easier just to quote the price you know applies everywhere, and let the locals add the rest on top.
For phone service it's really crazy. I used to work for a phone company, and there were outlier counties that charged $12/month in fees (50 cents is closer to normal) to each phone line for access to 911 service on what was nominally a $15 landline service. We couldn't just honor the $15 price and eat that $12 on top of the rest of the local fees and taxes - we'd have been losing money with each additional customer.
So the result was the national advertised price was still $15, and depending on your jurisdiction your out-the-door cost was going to be between $20 and $40.
but that's no excuse for the price seen / shown inside the store to not be the price you pay - especially with electronic display screens now.
Also even before that it's not complicated to set the price including tax then deduct the tax from the listed price at point of sale, as it had to be calculated at that point regardless...
Because that is the price of the item. The tax is on the sale. Some states do not allow you to advertise the post tax price. It's incredibly stupid.
At least that is somewhat reasonable. Internet companies regularly advertise one price and then add a bunch of fees on top that can add another 20% to the cost. The FCC is forcing them to cut that out and they are bidding that they cannot be expected to know what all of the fees will be on each location as if they do not have all that info on their fucking database.
Fyi that was a rhetorical question.
And there's nothing indicating how much that tax is. You either know or you don't.
because sales tax!
The hash browns inflation really has been something else man. I feel like it's partially because the app basically gives away a bunch of breakfast food almost for free, and then asks if you want to add a hash brown to the order. Of course I'm going to add the hash brown. It's bullshit that it is $3, but I can't like not have the hash brown. That would be un-American
Absolutely agreed. Wages keep going up yet everyone is struggling. Hell I make a good salary and I'm struggling to scrape by. I was better off in 2019 making a fraction of what I'm making now. Wtf is happening?
Corporate greed.
COVID and the result of 4 years of tax cuts for billionaires/corporations catching up to us. It's probably going to continue to get worse while Republicans block congress because, while under Biden they can't really get much done in terms of fucking up wealth taxes even more, their presence also means that we can't really fix it either and it's going to stay broken with the rich getting taxed far too little.
Progressive New Deal tax policies with very good wealth taxes (around 94% for the highest marginal tax rate) are what made the American economy boom during and after WW2, and conservatives took that away from us by cutting their tax rate by over half (Reagan especially fucked it up and made it as low as 30%) and shifting the tax burden to the poor. Now we have a situation where the ultra-rich pay less taxes than the working class and our society is collapsing due to it.