New York Times Pitchbot is a parody account.
It used to be, but inflation is very quickly changing things.
Just a year ago, what I could get in a “$5 Biggie Bag” at Wendy’s (which was their most affordable decent full meal) is now $6. That doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but it went up 20% in just a year. There now is no such thing as a “$5 Biggie Bag”. There is a $4 one, which just has one sandwich and one small 4-piece chicken nugget (no drink or fries) that they call a “Biggie Bite”, a handful of $6 bags, and one “$8 Biggie Bundle” which is pretty big (two sandwiches, a side item, a drink).
And that is one of the better deals for your money you’re going to find at a fast food place. A normal combo (sandwich, side, and drink) is between $10-12 everywhere (including Wendy’s for their items that aren’t “Biggie” deals).
Granted, those $6 “Biggie Bags” are pretty good, where you get a sandwich, fries, small order of nuggets, and a drink. That should be enough to fill up even hungry adult without having to add anything extra. But they are the exception. The “Extra Value Meals” at McDonald’s, the very cheapest items they sell as a combo, are $8. A quarter pounder, just a single regular-sized burger, no sides, no drink, no extras, is almost $6 on its own. (And note that $6 is the menu price before sales tax; you’re actually paying more than that out of your pocket.)
If you are extremely frugal you can put together $5 meals, sure. That’s what we tend to do. The vast majority of what we get come from grocery stores, we use membership discounts and coupons, we are careful and save money and cook our own food. And we can easily eat for $5 a meal per person for something healthy and filling.
Not everyone has that luxury. Some people have hectic jobs that don’t afford them a lot of time to go shopping on their own and take time for meal preparation and planning. Some people live in “food deserts” where they don’t have ready access to grocery stores. For them, $5 a meal is absolutely not reasonable and doesn’t reflect reality.
Hm, last I saw, there were still a couple of $5 Biggie Bag options at Wendy’s, and you can assemble a decent meal for about that from the Taco Bell value menu, too. Maybe it varies by location, or maybe I’m just out of date.
Either way, it’s not too hard for grocery-store food, and breakfast should be cheaper than the other two meals.
Food deserts are in fact a problem, but that’s not one that will be solved by making grocery-store food cheaper.
So, let’s imagine a world where $15.64 is what a family pays for 3 square meals and a snack.
For the average family of four:
$15.64 x 4 = $62.56 per day x 7 days = $437.93 per week x 52 = $22,772 per year, just for groceries.
So, a parent working a full time job would need to bring home $11 per hour after tax just to buy food for their family. Assuming, of course, perfect adherence to our government economists rosy estimate of what food costs, if your clever and frugal, and leaving exactly $0 for any non-food expenses.
Yes, but that’s where the rent money you’re earning from your 10 to 12 homes comes in.
And of course, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. In my state, the minimum wage is $17.13 an hour, but that’s pretty high. A number of states just use that federal minimum wage.
JD Vance regrets to inform you that he has fucked his wife, who he is totally not cheating on with Charlie Kirk’s widow.
I wouldn’t trust him without a dna test. Probably the SS agents’ baby.
No, SS were supposed to procreate only with certified Aryans.
She is from India so, yes, she’s Aryan.
Not real Aryans, the Nazi fantasy of an Aryan.
Should’a put quotes around “Aryan.” Mea culpa.
I looked it up, and it turns out she’s of Dravidian ancestry, so no - wrong part of India.
Sorry to nitpick.
The right for the last 60 years: We need unrestricted access to guns and the right to carry them anywhere we want so we can defend ourselves when the tyrannical government starts going door-to-door to round us up
Minneapolitans defending their neighbors from ICE: ok
The right: No not like that
Guess where most of them are.
Holy shit, that was funny – and so accurate.
Former Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel would like to make it very clear that ICE is not the Gestapo.
I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. 
Two ways to know cold weather is coming to Texas:
- Check the weather reports:
- Check Ted Cruz’s travel itinerary:
Might as well say ‘I’ve been living under a rock for the past 12 months’…
Stealing.