McDonald’s CEO Knows Trump Fried the Economy — But He Helped Him

The Big Mac has a big problem.

It’s a little galling to hear the CEO of McDonald’s complaining about income inequality, because corporations like McDonald’s are making the problem worse.(Photo: McDonald's Corporation)

According to the CEO of McDonald’s, fast-food chains saw a double-digit drop in visits from lower- and middle-income customers in the first quarter of 2025, Robert Reich wrote in an opinion piece for Raw Story.

The reason? He says we’re becoming a two-tiered economy, and lower- and middle-income customers can no longer afford fast food.

While the stock market is riding high and the Trump administration is slashing taxes for corporations and the rich, nothing is “trickling down” to everyday Americans.

Frankly, it’s a little galling to hear the CEO of McDonald’s complaining about income inequality, because corporations like McDonald’s are making the problem worse.

They pay their workers so little that many have to rely on food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet — for which the rest of us pay through our taxes.

Meanwhile, their CEOs are paid roughly 1,000 times more than their typical employee.

Big corporations have a history of union-busting, further reducing the power of their workers to negotiate a living wage.

Finally, they make the entire economy fragile. As wealth concentrates in the richest 10%, the rest of America can’t afford to buy enough to keep the economy running.

So what can we do about this?

End the trickle-down hoax once and for all. Tax cuts for the wealthy make the rest of us worse off, not better. Fight for unions. In the 1950s, when America had the biggest middle class the world had ever seen, a third of all private-sector workers were unionized. Now, it’s 6%.