The Poor Are Spending Less At McDonald’s

The Poor Are Spending Less At McDonald’s

Douglas A. McIntyre

Wed, August 5, 2026 at 6:20 PM GMT+3 2 min read

Quick Read

• Kempczinski tied McDonald's disappointing quarterly results directly to elevated gas prices disproportionately squeezing low-income consumers.

• Wendy's, Chipotle, and Burger King have all reported that low-income customer pullback is dragging down their same-store sales.

• The k-shaped economy now threatens every fast-food chain that depends on lower-income Americans as its core customer base.

• Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and McDonald's didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) said its quarterly results were less than acceptable for several reasons. First, it had too many promotions offered to customers. Thus, customers got confused, and the number of promotions also appeared to slow service.

McDonald's replaced the CEO of its McDonald's USA operations. The overall McDonald's CEO, Chris Kempczinski, was ebullient when talking about the expected new performance of the unit. Skye Anderson will take the job because the unit needs "focus and urgency to these efforts given her deep system knowledge, operational discipline, and proven ability to drive change and deliver results for everyone in our System."

Finally, more important than these was Kempczinski's comment about customer income. On the earnings call, he said, "Clearly, when you have elevated gas prices, which is the core issue that I think we're all seeing about in the press right now, gas prices, inflation on that, that is going to disproportionately impact low-income consumers." He expects that to continue.

Low-income consumers have been critical to the fortunes of McDonald's and its fast-food rivals. Wendy's (NASDAQ: WEN) has commented about the drag low-income customers have had on same-store sales. Chipotle (NYSE: CMG) and Burger King have joined that chorus.

It appears that even inexpensive fast-food companies are being hurt by what is known as the "k-shaped" economy. People with low incomes, some of whom live below the poverty line, are being stung by new hurdles like gas prices. And anyone who thinks food prices are not going up is wrong.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and McDonald's didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

If McDonald's analysis is right, fast-food companies and other companies that market to poor Americans have a problem.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and McDonald's didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

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