May 'annual profit' continue to be the only measure that has mattered, does matter, or will ever matter to those that bask in the radiance of perpetual earning growth!
I don't think it's fair to imply that McDonald's is doing anything shady. They have over 2 million workers (although not directly, it's a franchise model). They make a lot of profit but, proportional to the total workforce, it's about average. Hardly something to be outraged about.
If you spread $1 billion evenly among two million workers, that's about $500 per employee per year. That is roughly 25 cents an hour for a full-time worker. Paying 100% health care would be several billion dollars.
The underlying question here is whether companies should make any profit at all. If the amount of profit allowed is non-zero, what is the correct number? And if there is a correct number, what do you propose to do about it?
We are allowed to pierce the corporate veil here.
The correct question is: how much more or less would they make if they were applying some other philosophy?
At least in the context of this conversation.
And, an increase in profit of $340 million across 13,882 stores (in the US) is less impressive.
And presumably that $8.563 billion is McDonalds corporate and the franchisees didn’t see all of that gain.
People like to believe that enshitifying everything will eventually lead to failure because sucks for us. It does suck for us. But I'm not convinced that karma is coming for them.