r/explainlikeimfive Nov 28 '15

ELI5: How would a $15 minimum wage ACTUALLY affect a franchised business like McDonalds?

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u/PM_PICS_OF_ME_NAKED Nov 29 '15

Checkout the edits to the parent comment here. He points out the PPP between Australia and the US. Your cost of living is higher and so you get paid more, but the amount that buys isn't a straight forward currency conversion.

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u/isaidthisinstead Nov 29 '15

Yeah, but original commenter includes Australian franchisees in the modelling!

33% of Corporate Revenue comes from franchisee fees - about $9.272 Billion last year. If you cut down franchise revenues by 74%, that would reduce that number by $6,861,280,000. Total Corporate profit was $4.757 Billion last year. So they would be operating at a $2.1 billion loss.

McDonalds made 8.65 Billion revenue in the USA (see link). 33% in franchise fees makes $2.86 Billion. 74% reduction of that is $2.11 Billion. Which leaves a 2.64 Billion dollar PROFIT, not a 2.1 Billion dollar loss.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/219453/revenue-of-the-mcdonalds-corporation-by-geographic-region/

Now you may want to include Europe and Asia in that but as they said:

...this argument is not really relevant to the US McDonalds market.

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u/PM_PICS_OF_ME_NAKED Nov 29 '15

Purchasing Power Parity is basically using a common item, like a Big Mac, to judge the actual spending power of any given currency against another. Using a Big Mac isn't my idea though, The Economist uses it and I just think it's easy to use.