{"id":572909,"date":"2026-05-08T12:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T12:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/572909\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T12:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T12:15:11","slug":"mcdonalds-ceo-just-shared-some-bad-news-about-the-k-shaped-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/572909\/","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":2,"featured_media":572910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[10100,196012,84,1941,1939,4115,1294,179110,196013,12695,196008,196009,196011,196007,50505,196010,56,54,55,1942],"class_list":["post-572909","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-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}