McDonald’s President responds to claims of “$8 Big Macs”

McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger has responded with a lengthy open letter, after a survey claimed that Big Mac prices had risen to almost $8.

The survey was conducted by TheStreet, and measured some of the most popular items sold by the fast food chain, comparing them to prices from 2019. It claimed that McDonald’s prices had climbed by 141%.

According to the survey, the recorded price rises are:

• Medium French Fries rose from $1.79 to $4.19.
• Big Macs rose by 87.7% to $7.49 from $3.99.
• McChickens rose 201.6% to $3.89 from $1.29.
• 10 McNuggets rose 68.8% from $4.49 to $7.58.
• Cheeseburgers rose 215% from $1 to $3.

The McDonald’s President responded: “I can tell you that it frustrates and worries me, and many of our franchisees, when I hear about an $18 Big Mac meal being sold – even if it was at one location in the U.S. out of more than 13,700.

“More worrying, though, is when people believe that this is the rule and not the exception, or when folks start to suggest that the prices of a Big Mac have risen 100% since 2019.

“The average price of a Big Mac in the U.S. was $4.39 in 2019,” Erlinger declared. “Despite a global pandemic and historic rises in supply chain costs, wages and other inflationary pressures in the years that followed, the average cost is now $5.29. That’s an increase of 21% (not 100%).”

A McDonald’s franchisee also disputed the claim on X/Twitter.

“This bogus chart is getting passed around. This data set doesn’t even list the same store or even the same source with pre versus post. The entire data set is rogue & has a severe data quality problem. You have data that is incomplete, inaccurate, inconsistent, outdated & simply of poor quality, making it completely unreliable for any type of analysis.”

Speaking of the individual McDonald’s stores, they continued: “As the report itself notes, pricing is set by individual franchisees and varies by restaurant. This is not an accurate representation of historical or current pricing at McDonald’s restaurants, and the 2024 average prices listed are significantly inflated.”

The graph including the price increases quickly went viral on Reddit, as well as other social media platforms. 

The conductors of the survey did note that: “[It is] difficult to accurately source historical data to compare to the present” since, “McDonald’s franchisees are given a high level of autonomy in setting menu prices for individual locations,” so the results might not be entirely accurate.

In other McDonald’s news, they are making some major changes to its burgers this year.