McDonald’s is losing its low-income customers. Economists call it a symptom of the stark wealth divide – Lake County Record

Suhauna Hussain, Los Angeles Times

In the early 2000s, after a severe slump, McDonald’s orchestrated a major turnaround, with the introduction of its Dollar Menu.

The menu, whose items all cost $1, illustrated just how important it was to market to low-income consumers — who value getting the most bang for their buck.

Coming at a time of flagging growth, tumbling stock and the company’s first report of a quarterly loss, the Dollar Menu reversed the fast-food giant’s bad fortune. It paved the way for three years of sales growth at stores open at least a year and ballooned revenue by 33%, news outlets reported at the time.

But no longer.

Industry-wide, fast-food restaurants have seen traffic from one of its core customer bases, low-income households, drop by double digits, McDonald’s ch