Sure, we still don’t have jobs numbers, but there’s a lot you can learn from a slop bowl .

A spate of fast food and fast casual restaurants reported earnings last week, including Cava and McDonald’s, while Chipotle reported the last week of October.

Taken together, they paint a portrait of a cash-strapped consumer, particularly on the lower end of the earnings spectrum, as job growth weakens .

True to this, not new to this. McDonald’s has often served as a harbinger of economic stress. And if comments from the company in the last year are any indication, low-income consumers continue to feel the pinch.

“We continue to see a bifurcated consumer base with [quick-service restaurant] traffic from lower-income consumers declining nearly double digits in the third quarter, a

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