The Uproar Over 4 Dollar Fries Shows Just How Severely America’s Standard Of Living Has Eroded

Once upon a time potatoes were what the poorest people in society would eat because they were so inexpensive. But now we are being charged an average of $4.19 for a carton of medium fries at McDonald’s. There are many that are very upset about the rapidly rising cost of fries, and this is yet another example that shows that our standard of living is being absolutely shredded. As costs rise, the labor market just continues to get even weaker. So we are being hit with much higher prices at the same time that paychecks are stagnating and mass layoffs are occurring all over the nation. So what is going to happen to our standard of living if these trends continue to intensify during the months ahead?

By about a two to one margin, middle-income Americans feel like their financial situations have gotten worse over the past year…

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey showed that 44% of middle-income respondents said their financial situation was worse than it was a year ago, while 23% said it was better, based on a three-month average ending in September. Those who feel worse off overwhelmingly said it was because of higher prices.

Federal bureaucrats continue to insist that inflation is low, but everyone can see that is simply not true.

Compared to the year just prior to the pandemic, so many of the things that Americans regularly spend money on have gone up dramatically.

During a recent segment on Fox Business, viewers were shown how much some of the most popular menu items at McDonald’s increased in price from 2019 to 2024…

McDonald’s Price Increases from 2019 to 2024:

Medium French Fry $1.79 -> $4.19
McChicken $1.29 -> $3.89
Big Mac $3.99 -> $7.49
10 McNuggets $4.49 -> $7.58
Cheeseburger $1.00 -> $3.15

Some of this is over a 200% increase in price. This isn’t inflation — it’s legalized robbery.

$4.19 for a carton of medium fries is obscene!

For years, many of us warned that the very foolish decisions that our leaders were making would lead to very painful inflation.

Needless to say, that is precisely what happened.

A cheeseburger at McDonald’s is now more than three times as expensive as it was in 2019.

How are young families supposed to afford that?

How is anyone supposed to afford that?

We have never seen the price of cheeseburgers go up so rapidly.

Not even during the Carter administration did we see this sort of “burger inflation”.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning, because the size of the U.S. cattle herd has dropped to the lowest level in about 75 years…

Tyson Foods will close a major beef plant in Lexington, Nebraska, with about 3,200 employees in January after U.S. cattle supplies dropped to their lowest level in nearly 75 years, the meatpacker said on Friday.

The closure in the heart of cattle-feeding country signaled that supplies will remain tight, forcing meatpackers to pay steep prices for cattle to process into steaks and hamburgers.

You may think that you will just switch to turkey.

Well, the price of a frozen turkey is 40 percent higher than it was last year…

The USDA recently projected that wholesale prices for frozen whole turkey hens will reach $1.32 per pound in 2025. That’s a 40 percent increase from 2024’s price of 94 cents per pound.

“The 2025 rise in price is a response to lower production with HPAI pressures combined with steady demand,” according to a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

When talking heads on television tell us that “inflation is low”, I just want to scream.

Since 2019, the annual income needed to afford a median-priced home in rural U.S. counties has more than doubled…

Homeowners need an annual income of $74,508 to afford a median-priced home in rural U.S. counties, up a staggering 105.8% from before the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, rural buyers only needed to earn $36,206, according to Redfin’s analysis, which compares the third quarter of 2025 with the third quarter of 2019.

The income needed to afford a median-priced home in suburban counties rose 90.9% to $102,120 during that same period. Previously, potential buyers only needed an annual salary of $53,482. The income needed to afford a home in urban counties climbed 87.5% to $118,300. Buyers needed an annual salary of $63,103 prior to the pandemic.

Take a close look at those numbers again.

They are completely and utterly outrageous.

Let me ask you a question.

Has your income doubled since 2019?

If not, you are falling behind.

Vehicle prices have soared into unprecedented territory too…

Car prices are trending up and the average cost of a new car is at an all-time high, approaching the $50,000 mark for the first time.

The average transaction price for a new vehicle in October was $49,105, according to data from Edmunds.

In the old days, you could buy an entire house for $50,000.

But now thanks to the widespread adoption of “planned obsolescence”, $50,000 will just get you a “new vehicle” that has been designed to start breaking down shortly after the warranty expires.

Meanwhile, the employment market just keeps getting weaker and weaker.

At this point even the government is admitting that the unemployment rate just reached the highest level that we have seen since the early days of the last pandemic.

Young people are being hit particularly hard, and we are being told that this is the toughest market for college graduates in a very long time…

Rising youth unemployment could be an “early indicator that the economy is slowing down or maybe even heading towards a recession,” said Anders Humlum, assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago.

A college degree is often considered the best pathway to a well-paying job, but that may no longer be as true as it once was, experts say.

“For the first time in modern history, a bachelor’s degree is no longer a reliable path to professional employment,” Gad Levanon, chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute, told CNBC.

I feel very badly for college graduates that are searching for work in this very tough environment.

In fact, I feel very badly for anyone that is searching for work in this very tough environment.

Nobody can deny that economic activity is slowing down all around us…

There are not as many goods moving around the country. Ship counts from Asia to the US are down roughly 30% from last year. Railcar loadings are down roughly 6% against last year. The trucking industry also continues to see shrinking capacity. If there are fewer things to move around the country, then the industry will likewise need fewer drivers, loaders, and various workers. Idle trains and empty containers don’t need a lot of people to mind them.

When less stuff is being moved around the country, that means that the economy is slowing down.

We can all feel it.

Looking ahead, an alarmingly high percentage of Americans are convinced that they will be even worse off next year…

A report by Primerica found that in the third quarter of 2025, just 21% of middle-income Americans believe they’ll be better off financially in the next year, while 34% believe they’ll be worse off and 33% expect their situation to remain the same.

Those figures are notably more pessimistic than the firm’s data from the third quarter of 2020 showed, when 33% of middle-income Americans thought they would be better off financially in the next year versus just 17% who thought they would be worse off and 40% expected they would be about the same.

The mood of the entire country has changed dramatically.

I have heard from so many people that have cut back everywhere that they can, but it still isn’t enough.

Even many households that are bringing in six figure incomes have shifted into survival mode…

The effort to keep up with higher prices feels relentless to Teri Kopp, who lives in Southbury, Conn., and works as an administrator at a synagogue. “I’m tired,” she said.

Kopp and her husband Bill, an HVAC technician, earn a combined $115,000 a year. They often sit in the dark with only strings of LED lights on to save on electric costs. She is considering painting rocks to send to friends as Christmas gifts. Their biggest vacation this year, a road trip to Maine, was mostly covered by cash back from a shopping-rewards program.

Kopp, 59 years old, doesn’t see any way to quickly pay off the $15,000 in credit-card debt the family took on largely to cover medical bills for knee surgeries. She also has $30,000 in debt from her daughter’s undergraduate degree in biology, which has yet to yield any job offers in a tough labor market for new graduates.

It took a long time for us to get here.

We borrowed and spent tens of trillions of dollars that we did not have, and the Federal Reserve just kept shoveling more cash into the financial system.

As a result, the cost of living is out of control and our system is reaching a breaking point.

Our leaders kept kicking the can down the road, but in the process they kept making our long-term problems even worse.

Now a carton of medium fries is more than 4 dollars, and America’s middle class is being systematically destroyed.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.