I believe you’re in the minority here. Perhaps your experience is different because of your skill set or the market you’re in. Anyone that I know personally who got laid off (in tech) took at least 6 months to find a job. I don’t know about anyone else but that to me is pretty brutal. More so as the people getting laid off are mid career, some with kids.

Edit: Add to the above that companies like Walmart are seeing an uptick in high wage earners becoming their customers, and McDonalds seeing a shrinking population of low-wage customers.

It’s easy to infer the rest from there. People who used to do well are cutting expenses and those who were already struggling are..I seriously don’t know what they’re doing. Where do you eat when you downgrade from McDonalds..Wendy’s? It’s a sad state of affairs.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-11-16/mcdonalds-...

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kragen 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You ask, "Where do you eat when you downgrade from McDonalds..Wendy’s? It’s a sad state of affairs." On the off chance that this isn't a joke, you need to know that eating out is very expensive in the US, even at McDonald's. According to the obviously highly credible https://mcdonalds-menu-prices.us/ a Quarter Pounder With Cheese costs US$7.99 now. I think home-cooked rice and lentils costs about US$0.20. Other similarly low-cost foods include polenta, homemade bread, homemade mayonnaise, zucchini, spaghetti, sunflower-seed cheese, homemade peanut butter, onions, potatoes, etc. Those numbers aren't even the same order of magnitude.

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__MatrixMan__ 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Where do you eat when you downgrade from McDonalds?

You buy groceries. And if you must downgrade from there you eat the rich.

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mbfg 6 hours ago | parent [-]

the advantage of fast-food over groceries, is that you don't have to worry about spoilage and waste. So the delta is probably less than you think. Now granted McD is an s-show, they are no longer the restaurant of the poor, You likely can get a better burger meal deal at a Chilis than a McD, as sad as that is.

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ac29 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Even if you waste half your groceries its still cheaper than eating out. And wasting that much is difficult to do, most staples will last weeks to years without risk of spoilage.

There are some fresh fruits and vegetables that are exceptions because they dont take well to refrigeration or freezing but really not much.

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mbfg 5 hours ago | parent [-]

also, there is the case of the mismatched quantities for shopping, ie, the old hot dogs come in 10 packs, and rolls in 8 backs, etc.

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defrost 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Good grief .. you're serious?

Flour comes in sacks, meat comes in cuts - we've a quarter lamb in the freezer, part of that in the fridge, and yeast and flour enough for bread for the next six months.

We shop cheap, like the family has done for the past 100+ years, much of our food comes from the garden - our excess gets swapped with others excess (we have a lot of fruit, we never buy eggs, they come from people that can be bothered to run chickens).

It's a bit of work, we save money by not going to a gym and our life expectancy and cancer survival rates are much better than, say, middle north America.

	▲	__MatrixMan__ 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		To cut mbfg a bit of slack here, your approach doesn't work in all situations. I admire your functioning community and supportive family and the fact that you've got time and space for things like gardening. If people can't live like you do, it's probably because they've been placed on some kind of economic hamster wheel, and rather than figure out how to get a quarter of a lamb their better bet is to emigrate or to disrupt the system that's making McDonalds feel like a relevant factor in a survival equation and build the community that you're describing in the wake of that disruption, which might be difficult if you've never been part of a community that functions in that way.

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strken 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is just wrong. Beans and rice are more than an order of magnitude cheaper than McDonald's per calorie and they're non-perishable. Combine that with whatever fruit and veg is affordable fresh or frozen, a bit of cheap seasoning, and you're still coming out ahead.

You obviously need access to cooking and storage facilities to eat like this, but the target audience of McDonald's is the time-poor, the resource-constrained, or the depressed and disabled, rather than just the money-poor.

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HDThoreaun 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

McDonald’s is expensive. Much cheaper to cook yourself.

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adamredwoods 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Situational.

IMO, I think it breaks even, but eating out saves a lot of time! Healthier cooking at home? Yes. I studied this for myself (N=1), and my cooking is about US$10/meal give or take (asparagus, chicken, rice, water to drink). If you cook for two or more people, then I think cooking at home comes out ahead financially.

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kragen 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What hourly wage are you imputing to your cooking to get US$10 for a meal of asparagus, chicken, and rice? My estimate for the materials would be:

- 250g raw chicken wings: $375 ≈ 30¢ (I bought these on Saturday, so this is the current price)

- 200g asparagus: $1500 ≈ US$1 (this is a rough guess because I never buy it and the greengrocer doesn't have a web site)

- 100g dry long-grain rice: $100 ≈ 7¢ (just checked the price online, and I think this is rather high)

- water to drink and cook the rice is unmetered here

Total: US$1.37. But you could easily get it down to less than half that with a different vegetable. Salts, spices, and oils might add a few pennies.

Possibly if you are at McMurdo Base or something your ingredient prices might be unusual.

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cloverich 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

10/meal is very expensive, fyi. A rotisserie costco chicken is $5 for reference; rice and beans is essentially free. Cabbage nearly so.

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astura 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>cooking is about US$10/meal give or take (asparagus, chicken, rice, water to drink).

You must be eating an absolute TON to eat $10 worth of chicken, asparagus, and rice. I just checked the prices at Target and rice is $1.89 for 2 pounds, chicken thighs are $1.69 a pound. Asparagus is spendier at $5 for 1 pound.

How many pounds of chicken and asparagus are you eating? Even if you ate two pounds of chicken and the entire pound of asparagus you aren't hitting $10.

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ta12653421 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

...and add the time for preparation, cleaning up etc.: Thats one of the most frustrating things when cooking for one person - you invest 45min to eat 5min and the rest is "organisation & logistics"

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matwood 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

45 minutes is crazy. I have a chicken and rice dish I can make in 20 minutes (yes, I've timed myself because I'm weirdo and enjoy those chef shows). It takes 20 minutes because that's how long the rice takes. It can be faster if I use shrimp instead of chicken (more expensive though) and noodles instead of rice. It also makes ~3 servings.

	▲	ta12653421 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Wow, i got downvoted for complaining about my cooking times on HackerNews, this is a real innovation: so: - 5 min walk to supermarket - 10 min in there - 5 min walk back home - washing & cutting wedgetables 7 - 10 min - maybe cutting some meat: 5 min on top - eating 5 - 10 min - cleaning up the kitchen 5 min

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astura an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That's why when it's just me I don't really do much cooking. I'll eat ultra-low prep stuff like toast (w/beans, hummus or avocado), bagged salad, frozen food, or grilled tofu.

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cal_dent 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I believe the long-term average in the US and UK was somewhere around 20 - 25 weeks so that's still broadly in line. Not trying to dismiss anyone but there is a cacophony of voices about the difficulty in finding jobs but hard to ascertain if that is any different from normal or we just got used to a boom cycle (ex Covid) and that's causing the disconnect?