90 percent of the country’s new jobs: Cited in Macdonald and Sirianni, Service Society, p. 1.
4 An estimated one out of every eight workers in the United States: Cited in “Welcome to McDonald’s,” McDonald’s Corporation, 1996.
annually hires about one million people: This is my own estimate, based on the following: McDonald’s has about 14,000 restaurants in the United States, each employing about 50 crew members; a conservative estimate of the turnover rate among McDonald’s crew members is about 150 percent; having a workforce of roughly 700,000 and an annual turnover rate of 150 percent requires the hiring of about 1 million new workers every year. In its promotional literature, the McDonald’s Corporation claims to have “surpassed the U.S. Army as the nation’s largest training organization.” Given how McDonald’s actually “trains” its workers, I have used the word “hires” as a synonym. See “Welcome to McDonald’s.”
the nation’s largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes… the second largest purchaser of chicken: See Love, Behind the Arches, pp. 3–4; Mark D. Jekanowski, “Causes and Consequences of Fast Food Sales Growth; Statistical Data Included,” USDA Food Review, January 1, 1999. McDonald’s role as the leading pork purchaser was described to me by a pork industry executive who prefers not to be named.
the largest owner of retail property in the world: See Bruce Upbin, “Beyond Burgers,” Forbes, November 1, 1999; Love, Behind the Arches, p. 4.
earns the majority of its profits: McDonald’s has an unusual franchise arrangement, serving as landlord for its franchisees and adjusting lease payments according to sales levels. About 85 percent of the McDonald’s in the United States are operated by franchisees. See Emerson, New Economics of Fast Food, pp. 59-62; Love, Behind the Arches, pp. 154–57; “Welcome to McDonald’s.”
spends more money on advertising and marketing: Interview with Lynn Fava, Competitive Media Reporting.
the world’s most famous brand: See “McDonald’s Wins Top Spot in Global Brand Ratings,” Brand Strategy, November 22, 1996.
more playgrounds than any other private entity: Its nearest rival, Burger King, operates about one-quarter the number of playgrounds.
one of the nation’s largest distributors of toys: According to the British newspaper the Evening Standard, in 1998 McDonald’s purchased 1.3 billion toys from Chinese manufacturers. Cited in Lachlan Colquhoun, “McDonald’s Soars to Success in Chinese Fast Food Market,” Evening Standard, October 21, 1999.
96 percent could identify Ronald McDonald: Cited in “Welcome to McDonald’s.”
The only fictional character with a higher degree: Max Boas and Steve Chain express some reservations about the accuracy of this study, which was conducted by McDonald’s, but I find it credible. A more recent study, conducted by an independent market research firm, found that at least 80 percent of the children in the nine foreign countries surveyed could recognize Ronald McDonald. See Boas and Chain, Big Mac, p. 115; Love, Behind the Arches, p. 2; and “Barbie, McDonald’s Find Common Ground,” Selling to Kids, September 30, 1998.
more widely recognized than the Christian cross: A survey by a marketing firm called Sponsorship Research International — conducted among 7,000 people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, India, and Japan — found that 88 percent could identify the golden arches and that 54 percent could identify the Christian cross. The most widely recognized symbol was the interlocking rings of the Olympics. See “Golden Arches More Familiar Than the Cross,” Plain Dealer, August 26, 1995.
5 “the McDonaldization of America”: Jim Hightower, Eat Your Heart Out: Food Profiteering in America (New York: Crown, 1975), p. 237.
“bigger is not better”: Ibid., p. 3.
the final remains of one out of every nine Americans: Cited in Erin Kelly, “Death Takes a Holiday,” Fortune, March 15, 1999.
“We have found out… that we cannot trust”: Quoted in Love, Behind the Arches, p. 144.
6 America’s largest private employer: The health care industry employs more workers, but a large proportion of them work at publicly owned and operated facilities. See “Employment by Selected Industry, with Projections 1986–2006,” Statistical Abstract, p. 429.
the real value of wages in the restaurant industry: See Patrick Barta, “Rises in Many Salaries Barely Keep Pace with Inflation,” Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2000.
roughly 3.5 million fast food workers: The figure was supplied by the National Restaurant Association.
by far the largest group of minimum wage earners in the United States: Interview with Alan B. Krueger, professor of politics and economics at Princeton University.
The only Americans who consistently earn: Fast food workers are at the bottom of the restaurant industry’s pay scale, and the industry pays the lowest wages of any nonagricultural endeavor. Similarly, migrant farm workers are at the bottom of the agricultural pay scale. Although some farm laborers earn a decent hourly wage, many are paid the minimum wage — or less. See “Non-Farm Industries — Employees and Earnings, 1980–1998,” Statistical Abstract, p. 436; and Eric Schlosser, “In the Strawberry Fields,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1995.
approximately three hamburgers: My estimate is based on the following: Per capita consumption of ground beef is now about thirty pounds a year, with the vast majority consumed as hamburgers. A regular hamburger patty at McDonald’s weighs 1.6 ounces; using that as a standard, Americans eat about three hundred burgers a year (five to six a week). Using a Quarter Pounder as the standard, Americans eat about 120 hamburgers a year (at least two a week). The consumption figure that I’ve used assumes an average patty weight somewhere between 1.6 and 4 ounces. See “Hamburger Consumption Takes a Hit, But a Reversal of Fortune Is in Offing,” National Provisioner, August 1999.
four orders of french fries every week: Per capita consumption of frozen potato products (a category that is almost entirely french fries) is about 30 pounds a year. A regular order of french fries at McDonald’s weighs 68 grams. Converting the pounds to kilograms and then dividing that number by 68 leaves you with the number of annual french fry servings: 205 (about four per week). See “Potatoes: U.S. Per Capita Utilization by Category, 1991–1999,” USDA Economic Research Service, 2000.
new restaurants are opening there at a faster pace: See “1999 to Mark Eighth Consecutive Year of Growth for Restaurant Industry,” news release, National Restaurant Association, December 22, 1998.