Been to McDonald’s recently? It’s expensive, poor quality, and a bad customer experience. But that’s just my opinion. An opinion I am really interested in is that of Robert Reich, a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet and equality camaigner.
Robert Reich’s critique of McDonald’s is not really about fast food. It is about what happens when a business forgets the basic truth of any functioning economy: your staff and your customers are often the same people.
McDonald’s leaders now admit that lower and middle income customers, the ones who fast food was invented for, are visiting less because they cannot afford it. When a company with that scale, brand familiarity and cultural weight begins to see demand drop, something deeper is going wrong.
You do not need to be a global chain to take this seriously. In fact, smaller firms should pay closer attention. This is a case study in how not to run a business in a fragile economy.
If your workers cannot afford your product, your model has a fault line
Reich highlights an uncomfortable reality. Many McDonald’s workers rely on public support to get by. At the same time, the company directs extraordinary sums to shareholders and senior executives.
That approach might keep margin graphs tidy for a while, but the long-term impact is predictable. Workers spend less. Local economies weaken. Your own customer base shrinks. Paying staff enough to live on is not generosity. It is economic stability. If you want demand to grow, you need people with spending power. Start with your own workforce.
Low pay is often subsidised by the taxpayer, and the public is noticing
Large employers who keep wages down push the cost somewhere else. Governments step in with top ups. The public pays twice: once at the till, once through the tax system.
This is the part that damages trust. People see a brand talking about “community investment” while quietly offloading responsibility for basic pay. Build a model that stands on its own feet. If your wages rely on state support, you do not have a sustainable cost structure.
Cutting labour costs is not the same as being efficient
The comments under Reich’s video tell their own story. Customers are switching to local cafés because the price difference has closed, and the experience is better. Others refuse to use self-service kiosks because they see them as a symptom of penny-pinching rather than innovation. Automation only works when service quality improves. If it becomes code for “we sacked half the team”, customers will feel it. Efficiency must enhance the offer, not diminish it.
When people feel squeezed, they cut discretionary spending first
McDonald’s is noticing a drop in visits from exactly the customers who used to treat it as an affordable break. Reich warns that this is what happens when wages stagnate while prices climb.
Businesses that rely on volume sales need to read that signal early. Disposable income has eroded. Families are making hard choices. Rework your value proposition before your customer is forced to. Price rises without income rises will hollow out your demand faster than you expect.
If you suppress wages, you suppress demand, including your own
This is Reich’s core argument. Seventy per cent of the US economy is driven by consumer spending. A model that depresses wages across the economy depresses demand across the economy.
McDonald’s is not suffering because customers disliked the product. It is suffering because the system it benefits from is collapsing under its own weight. As a business, your growth relies on a healthy economic environment. That means investing in decent wages, training, benefits and progression, not treating them as dead cost.
Culture matters. People can tell whether your values are real
McDonald’s has long resisted unions, kept pay low, and shifted cost pressures onto the public. No amount of branding fixes that. Customers read behaviour faster than marketing. Workers do too. Trust is built by consistency, not slogans.
If you claim to value people, your pay, conditions and decision making need to demonstrate it. Otherwise your credibility reserves drain very quickly.
7. The wider system is shifting. prepare now
Reich’s recommendations are not revolutionary: stronger unions, higher minimum wages, fairer tax systems and breaking up monopolies. But the direction is clear. Public appetite for the old model is shrinking.
The companies who adapt early will do well. The ones who wait will be regulated into doing it. Plan for a world where labour is valued, not squeezed. Where pay rises are normal, not exceptional. Where workers see a share of success.
The takeaway for any business owner or director
McDonald’s is not unique. It is just visible. What we are seeing is the end of the idea that you can squeeze wages at the bottom while extracting ever more value at the top.
Reich’s video is not a warning about one company. It is a reminder that your workforce is your economy. If you want stronger demand, higher loyalty, and a healthier business, start by strengthening the people who make it work day to day.
A good business pays well, listens well, and grows with its community rather than at its expense.
That is not politics. It is basic, durable economics.