Perhaps the most egregious part of this is that the graph shows dollar expenditures, not meals bought.
- A store in 2014 sells 1000 hamburgers at $5 each = $5000 in expenditures
- Same store in 2024 sells 800 hamburgers at $10 each = $8000 in expenditures
It's common for companies to raise prices to increase revenue, even if raising prices results in fewer people buying your product. This shit is taught in high school economics. Absolutely nothing here shows anything about how many people can afford fast food.
That lady is a casualty of the right-wing media sphere. She didn't come up with shit like bikes causing four-mile traffic jams; she was propagandized. She bears some responsibility for being gullible, but what kind of tools did her civics class give her to see through this?
Under a better government, she'd have started with better education and there wouldn't be a firehose of reactionary media pointed at her 24/7.