{"id":781522,"date":"2026-05-08T08:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/781522\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T08:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:11:14","slug":"mcdonalds-ceo-just-shared-some-bad-news-about-the-k-shaped-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/781522\/","title":{"rendered":"McDonald’s CEO Just Shared Some Bad News About the K-Shaped Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

America is not getting relief from its K-shaped economy<\/a> problem anytime soon, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said.<\/p>\n

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In a Thursday earnings call, Kempczinski said that the macro environment and consumer sentiment are “certainly not improving, and it may be getting a little bit worse.”<\/p>\n

The K-shaped economy, which refers to a divide in spending patterns between higher and lower-income consumers, has been a hot topic in retail earnings in recent months.<\/p>\n

Kempczinski said the affluent continue to have “very resilient spending.”<\/p>\n

“And that is true for our business as well, where we’re seeing solid growth, good growth with higher income, and also gaining share with higher income for us,” he said.<\/p>\n

But the picture is different on the other side of the aisle. He said that while the reduction in spending from lower-income consumers is not as pronounced as it was six months to a year ago, spending is “absolutely still declining.”<\/p>\n

He said inflationary pressures and rising gas prices are disproportionately affecting low-income consumers, and that consumer sentiment is marked by “heightened anxiety.”<\/p>\n

McDonald’s is trying to cater to both prongs of the K-shaped economy. It has doubled down on its lower-priced McValue menu, expanding to $3 menu items and $4 breakfast meal deals, alongside the $5 meal deal it introduced last year.<\/p>\n

But has also introduced some premium products, such as new drinks<\/a> like “Dirty Dr Pepper” and “Mango Pineapple Refresher,” which cost around $5 in New York City. Its new Big Arch burger \u2014 the one that went viral after Kempczinski’s taste test<\/a> in February \u2014 costs more than $12 in NYC.<\/p>\n

The fast food chain announced a 3.8% increase in global same-store sales in its latest quarter. Its total revenue was $6.52 billion. Its stock price is down about 7% since the start of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"America is not getting relief from its K-shaped economy problem anytime soon, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said. Loading…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":781523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[12],"tags":[2823,319797,64,4381,14336,38444,79,319796,319798,30570,149845,319793,319795,15772,163368,319794,67,132,68,1628],"class_list":["post-781522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-bad-news","tag-breakfast-meal-deal","tag-business","tag-business-insider","tag-ceo","tag-consumer-sentiment","tag-economy","tag-high-income","tag-hot-topic","tag-increase","tag-k-shaped-economy","tag-kempczinski","tag-lower-income-consumer","tag-mcdonald","tag-recent-month","tag-resilient-spending","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116537949382130934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}