CHICAGO – On April 21, McDonald’s goes back to promoting inexpensive menu items with a $3 Menu and offering a $4 Breakfast Meal Deal. Some of these items that less than a half a decade ago were dollar menu items.
For breakfast, the Sausage McMuffin, Sausage Biscuit, Sausage Burrito, Hash Browns or a medium McCafé Premium Roast Coffee are part of the new “value” package.
For lunch or dinner, that same under-$3 value extends to the McChicken, McDouble, 4-Piece Chicken McNuggets, small fries, and a medium soft drink.
Many of these items were $1 only five years ago before post-pandemic inflation pushed fast-food prices higher. Prices for food away from home historically rise about 3.5% per year but jumped 7% in 2023, 4% in 2024, and 3.8% in 2025, according to government figures reported by the Los Angeles Times. The McDouble, for example, has risen more than 150% since the mid-2010s according to FinanceBuzz analysis covered by VisualCapitalist.com. The new McValue menu is the chain’s latest move to address customer sensitivity after years of higher menu costs.
Comparing to the overall Consumer Price Index is helpful.
McDonald’s Sausage Biscuit, which was last available for $1 on the chain’s value menu five years ago, now carries a regular price of around $3 at many locations. That represents a 200% increase in the price of the item. By comparison, the Consumer Price Index for food away from home rose approximately 30% over the same five-year period, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data summarized by the Economic Research Service of the USDA.
McDonald’s Corporation reported 4% growth in consolidated revenues to $26.9 billion and net income of $8.56 billion for fiscal 2025, according to CNBC.com. Franchised restaurant revenues and a Q4 with 5.7% global comparable-sales growth from value promotions and marketing accounted for the increase, per the company’s earnings release covered by PRNewswire.
Franchises are struggling with the costs.
At the individual restaurant level, franchisees dealt with higher labor and commodity costs, but operator cash flow improved year-over-year through late 2025 with recovering same-store sales and average U.S. franchised unit volumes above $4 million, according to RestaurantDive.com. Owner-operator earnings at typical locations run roughly $150,000 to $450,000 per year.
The company’s franchise-heavy model keeps corporate profits steady as operators have to manage value pricing pressures.
The question begs. What is adding to the extra costs? And are staffing costs, with the difficulty of the complex menu items and an emphasis on drive thru, adding to it, on top of inflation in the general economy?
