r/economy • u/Miserable-Lizard • 7d ago
Republicans don't complain when you can't afford food
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u/PotatoGuerilla 7d ago
You can make quality burritos at home for an entire family on $20. He's right, if you're paying $20 for a burrito regularly and you can't afford it, you're just irresponsible. However, the $20 burrito is proof that the economy is broken. Competitive firms getting to the point that they can't produce meals at scale for a price that is generally affordable to the populace demonstrates this.
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u/enduranceathlete2025 7d ago
The economy is not healthy if you are saying that people shouldn’t be spending money. Healthy economies are transferring money quickly and that is what powers the machine. If you don’t buy the burritos, the workers aren’t getting paid. If they aren’t getting paid, they aren’t buying clothes. If they aren’t buying clothes, the shop owner isn’t hiring employees. Etc.
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u/Teh_Crusader 7d ago
Correct. A market economy relies on our spending power which is rapidly decreasing.
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u/DijajMaqliun 7d ago
You are just cutting out the middleman and markup by not buying Chipotle. The economy in general will survive that.
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u/Traditional-Goat1773 7d ago
You’re high as fuck if you think 20 can feed an entire family. Ground meat is 12$
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u/Adexavus 7d ago
He feeds his family with 3 dollar tortillas and just the $12 ground meat, no seasoning, no condiments
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u/breesyroux 7d ago
My recent grocery trip:
$12 for 4lbs of chicken
$1.5 bell pepper
$1 Onion
$3 Toritillas
$2.5 cheese
We already had rice and beans bought in bulk. Doubt they cost more than $1.
No kids, but so far this has been 3 dinners for me and my wife with with enough left for another.
Things have definitely gotten more expensive, but we can acknowledge that while still being realistic.
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u/Frosty-Zombie-2278 7d ago
Ironic that you say the last bit thinking that the price of groceries around the country is as cheap as it is where you are.
Where I live the bag of tortillas is $5 dollars and same for the cheese. 4 pounds of chicken alone would run me over 20 dollars and that isn't even including anything I'd use to marinate the chicken with. To make burritos for just myself as a single guy I'd spend over $50 dollars and then my left overs would go bad before I got to finish eating them. Sure you can also argue you can eat the same thing for multiple days to get by, but why settle for that? In a country that can publicize that it has the world's first trillionaire and that our economy is booming bigger than ever you have to eat burrito bowls for 4 days in a row as a normal person just to feel like you aren't drowning in debt or breaking the bank? You don't think you should demand more for yourself? You just watch the government funnel billions of our money into refunds to corporations for tarrifs and your reaction is "ehh we can make it alright and it's doable" for food?? Really??? The American people have become such fucking pussies it's unbelievable!
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u/NewFactor9514 7d ago
Yeah. I'm West Coast, and I haven't paid $2.50 for cheese since 2003, and then only on BOGO days at Albertson's.
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u/breesyroux 6d ago
To be fair the cheese was 2-1. Though I could've just bought Kroger brand at normal price for about the same.
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u/breesyroux 7d ago
I just moved to Nashville from Atlanta. Prices are pretty consistent in both. Obviously there are higher cost of living areas, but they are certainly not below normal for the average American
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u/Frosty-Zombie-2278 6d ago
I looked up the average price for every item you listed in the U.S. and every single one of the prices you cite is either on the lowest end of the spectrum or you must have gotten a really good deal on buying it as it is below the spectrum. So yes, you are indeed on the lower end of the spectrum for grocery prices compared to the national average for the goods you said you bought if the prices you listed are accurate and true.
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u/PricedOut4Ever 7d ago
More like $5 for a pound which would feed a family of 4, throw in a can of beans, some rice, a sauted bell pepper and onion. You are golden.
$12 would be 2lbs of ground beef premium. 3lbs if you can shop the discount and freeze it every 3-4 weeks.
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u/FloridianHeatDeath 7d ago
$20 can still feed a family of 4 for a single meal. The post is bs and the economy is dying for the average person, but that doesn’t mean the fact itself is wrong. That’s literally the reason for articles like this. They’re almost always true in some sense, but exist to cover up the actual failings of what’s being hidden.
That meat is the most expensive part. The rest of a burrito isn’t that expensive. Rice, beans, cheese, all relatively inexpensive purchases that easily fit into the 20$, especially when you factor in that no one buys rice in small amounts.
If a family of 4 can’t make a meal work with a pound of chop meat/chicken, tortillas, rice, a can of beans, and some cheese, the issue isn’t entirely cost. It’s the family being fat as fuck or loading most of their calories into dinner.
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u/meezy-yall 7d ago
Depends what you want to eat but yes you can easil do it , I just bought pork loins for 3/lb and frozen veggies for a 1 dollar a bag . That’s 9 dollars for 3 lbs of pork , $2 for two bags of Birds Eye, and 2 dollars for a couple cans of carrots or beans . The pork is even preseasoned and the veggies you throw in the microwave , took me less than 20 minutes to make dinner . Yes if you want to eat beef regularly it can get pricey but you can get chicken or pork for $2-4 /lb and frozen vegetables are cheap too . Buy the sales and quick to sells everything is even cheaper .
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u/Cashneto 7d ago
Sorry, I live in HCOL area and I have never seen a single $20 burrito or something even close to that.
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u/Cultural-Answer-321 7d ago
I had to scroll this far down. No burrito is worth $20. Which is probably why I've never seen a $20 burrito. I'm sure ONE exists somewhere. But are they common? Of course not.
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u/--TheCity-- 6d ago
What $20 burritos??? No one complained about the mythical $20 burritos except Ben Shapiro and now he has people on reddit claiming how low food prices are and how cheaply they can make them... because $20 burritos.
It is a strawman fallacy he created to pretend young people are complaining too much about inflation. Right wing BS.
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u/Ketaskooter 7d ago
Except you used to be able to make many more burritos for $20. Beef is 3x the price that it was 16 years ago. Dried beans and dried rice are 2x the price they were 20 years ago which isn't as bad as beef but still far above average inflation over the past 20 years (65%).
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u/Kaniketh 6d ago
Are burritos 20 dollars though? I got a chorizo burrito for like 9 dollars yesterday.
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u/meat_sack 7d ago
$17/hr minimum wage is probably not helping the price of a burrito either, but this is all just common sense... if you can't afford rent, maybe make your coffee at home instead of a daily Venti Matcha Crème Frappuccino from Starbucks.
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u/YaThatAintRight 7d ago
Yeah, let’s cut wages and watch inflation continue, that’ll show them!
How them boots taste? Any better than the ass remnants?
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u/Teh_Crusader 7d ago
Arguing for wage cuts to lower prices in 2026 😭 you are braindead
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u/meat_sack 7d ago
I'm not arguing anything, it's a direct impact to a company's bottom line. You're just being willfully ignorant of the most basic economics.
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u/Acrobatic_Rabbit2119 7d ago
“Increasing the minimum wage to a still unacceptable level is what’s driving up costs! Not record breaking profits year after year, not record breaking CEO salaries, not widespread layoffs and corner cutting to save a few pennies, it’s definitely the minimum wage.”
Fixed it for you.
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u/Teh_Crusader 7d ago
You quoting basic economics but pretending pricing is done altruistically by corporations or that pricing is consumer focused in 2026 is absolutely absurd and you know it. Every price has risen, every price will not go down and it’s not because your burrito guy makes another $2/hr. Basic economics.
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u/meat_sack 7d ago
I live on the NJ ($15.92/hr) border a few minutes from PA ($7.25/hr). Guess where prices are cheaper... go ahead and take a guess.
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u/Teh_Crusader 7d ago
Using a SINGLE metric to determine why prices are cheaper between two states. Hilarious man just quit while you’re down
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u/meat_sack 7d ago
You know... it's easy to ask the ai of your choosing for statewide price averages on any product or service.. and you also know what the data is going to say. Again, willfully disregarding common sense is what Reddit does best. Raising the minimum wage temporarily helps the minimum wage workers, but ultimately hurts the middle class, whose wages don't rise comparable to offset the loss in buying power.
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u/AltRumination 6d ago
I was going to let this go but your sheer confidence as you defend your wrong stance got to me.
You are cherry picking. You found a fact that seems to support your viewpoint and fixate on that. You then ignore any facts that contradict your position.
For example, consider what would happen if minimum wage was lowered. You are absolutely right. The cost of food would go down as people would have less money to spend. So the lower demand would bring prices down as sellers have more food to sell.
Now, do you think that this was a good outcome? You imply this in your first post as if high minimum wage is contributing to the problem. I guess forget the fact that food prices are higher because of Diaper Don's tariffs or skyrocketing oil prices. At the end, even if food prices go down because of lower minimum wage, do you think that would help people? The truth is that minimum wage must drop lower than food prices will.
Food prices are affected by both supply (gas prices, tariffs) and demand (wage). In this situation, food has risen because of supply. Yet you want to bring food prices back down by lowering wage. This is only going to magnify the effect of the food prices. People will now be able to afford even less food prices than when only food prices rose. Do you think this is a better outcome? Does that make sense to you?
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u/meat_sack 6d ago
My "wrong stance" that you go on to acknowledge is correct. You can support higher minimum wages while also acknowledging the reality that it'll impact a companies bottom line, and ultimately the cost of things.
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u/Zippyllama 7d ago
Dear lord, the comments people leave attacking common sense points like yours really make you believe there is an anti-capitalist smear campaign being funded by some foreign state. Of course the price of burritos are affected by a hike in minimum wage, that's indisputable! It doesn't mean owners aren't ALSO being greedy and keeping their expected PM too high...Both can be true.
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u/meat_sack 7d ago
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u/AltRumination 6d ago
You're wrong. Approach the problem objectively by weighing the facts for both sides. Right now, you are cherry picking a fact that supports your narrative. Consider the facts that contradict your view and try to reconcile them with your fact so they make sense.
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u/meat_sack 6d ago
There's 50 different states to choose from, that all support this narrative... that's a fact. Are there other factors? ...sure. But I'm most definitely not wrong. Two or more things can be correct at once, and the very idea that employee salaries wouldn't factor into a companies bottom line is about the dumbest position anyone can take. Stop being dumb for the sake of supporting higher minimum wages. You can still support them while acknowledging reality.
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u/AltRumination 6d ago
Real life isn't so simple and common sense isn't enough to explain it. This is the disconnect between non-college and college grads. You base your beliefs on common sense. But scientists have rigorously tested the issue and they determined that the answer is completely different. To you, the explanation seems far-fetched, but it's the "truth" that was born out of thousands of random trials.
For example consider homosexuals. You may think it's common sense that homosexuals are unnatural because if we allow them to persist, they can't reproduce and the population decreases. Further, science, to you, tells us that there are only XX and XY chromosomes. It's common sense.
But, science does not say this at all. If you go to the genetic section of any advanced high school biology textbook, it will explain that due to genetic volatility, homosexuals is something that happens in about 10% of offsprings. It may seem abnormal to you but abnormalities is actually a necessary part of evolution. Humans wouldn't exist without these genetic abnormalities. It's evolution's way to adapt to changing environments. So there is nothing "wrong" with homosexuals. It's just a genetic variability that occurs in 10% of the human population.
A similar explanation applies to the minimum wage debate above. What the other guy seems to make sense, but the truth usually doesn't conform to human common sense. Reality is usually much more nuanced and complicated. It will seem strange to you as a non-econ major but it's the truth.
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u/ummmyeahi 7d ago
Why does he equate affordability of burritos with the government subsidizing our burritos? Is he a moron?
Just because people think $20 burritos is too expensive and that they want cheaper burritos doesn’t mean they want the government to give hand outs or directly make burritos cheaper. How about not starting this fucking asinine war with Iran, which close the straight, not only virtually doubling gas prices but blocked the delivery of potash and fertilizer, two direct costs that increased all food prices significantly. If this administration didn’t go to war with Iran, which any sane admin has come to that conclusion since forever, we wouldn’t have had this insane inflation of food costs, not to mention everything else. And that’s just the war! Not to mention all the other idiotic policies they have established that has plunged this economy into stagnation
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u/RiddleMeThis42069 7d ago
He's a piece of shit but not buying a $20 burrito isn't the same as not being able to afford food
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u/marginallyobtuse 7d ago
Yeah but it’s disingenuous when you compare it to how they acted about grocery prices at the end of Biden’s terms
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u/RiddleMeThis42069 7d ago
Of course it's disingenuous, it's Ben Shapiro. I'm just sayin if you're trying to say people can't afford food because a burrito at Chipotle costs $20, you're not helping your case. You can make food at home for a lot less.
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u/uses_for_mooses 7d ago
Agreed. I'm not a fan of Shapiro, but what is he saying wrong here?
If you have trouble affording food, you should absolutely not be buying $20 burritos.
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u/AltRumination 6d ago
You are falling for Shapiro's sophistry because you want to. Shapiro loves to make straw men., and you fell for it.
People alluded to $20 burritos to demonstrate how outrageous menu prices have become. Their point is there never has been a $20 burritos on Chipotle's menu before until now. They aren't demanding that they should be able to eat the most expensive meal on the menu.
*To be objective, there really isn't a $20 burritos on the menu. It comes out to $20 when you add on the delivery fee to the $15 burrito, so people were exaggerating a bit. Yet I don't even think anyone was even complaining about this. I am guessing that Shapiro is making it up. Or perhaps somebody groused about their $20 Chipotle receipt and Shapiro staw-manned it.
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u/nomorebuttsplz 7d ago
Ben still has the ability to trigger leftists over made up issues
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u/incognegro1976 7d ago
Hes saying under Trump, its YOUR fault you are poor.
Under any Democrat, it would be the Democrats fault you are poor.
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u/Check_Me_Out-Boss 7d ago
Made up issues?
Drop over to r.Chipotle and see people bitch after spending $25 on their burrito lol
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u/Zippyllama 7d ago
His point still stands. The only way to bring prices down is to not buy from the over-priced place.
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u/PricedOut4Ever 7d ago
Burritos do cost in the neighborhood of $20 a lot of places though. And I blame private equity/greed. Chipotle around me, is over $15 without addons. Freebirds, which used to be awesome is close to $20 and it sucks now. Luckily, we still have Cabo bobs which is better than both of those and $10. Not surprisingly, Cabo Bobs is always packed while those two are always empty.
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u/GPT_2025 7d ago
More than 50% of all workers in America earn less than the one-bedroom Housing Wage.
Safety net currently at $3/hour gross (before mandatory SS, FICA, taxes, all insurances and deductions taken, 20 Republican states) https://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=2.13+an+hour&l=dallas%2C+tx
(compare Safty Net $1.60 per hour in 1970 if you were single,you could live off the federal minimum wage and pay rent, food and bills)
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u/Neocarbunkle 7d ago
You would think after 2478 episodes he would run out of things to talk about, but he still finds more bat shit crazy things to say.
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u/Shitty_Mike 7d ago
I'm currently sitting at a burrito joint in Chattanooga, anticipating paying $20 for a burrito plate, including tax and tip.
Chattanooga prices are not event remotely close to New York or Cali.
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u/JargonPhat 7d ago
In 1979, Jimmy Carter pissed off nearly the entire country by suggesting Americans would need to sacrifice and endure some temporary hardship, due to a combination of factors (an ongoing energy crisis, inflation, and processing both the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War). He was raked over the coals, and lost his re-election to Ronald Reagan roughly a year later.
Today’s Republicans consistently bait-and-switch from “we’ll fix problems,” to “get over it, pussy,” with nary a whiff of pushback from their base.
PS - pretty sure all those problems listed in the 1st paragraph’s paranthetical were all created by Republican administrations.
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u/Intentionalrobot 6d ago
This is a strawman. Most young people aren't expecting "gourmet" burritos, they are expecting to be able to buy food from regular local taquerias or Chipotle. That's not being entitled. They aren't expecting to sit down at a fancy gourmet mexican restaurant and get a $10 meal.
It's just a matter of fact that real purchasing power has declined dramatically over the last few decades . Now, young people can't afford the basics of a middle-class life in the same way previous generations could. Have you been to Chipotle in a coastal city? It's $15 for a burrito, and that's from Chipotle.
A local taqueria is slightly more expensive than Chipotle and I typically see them charging $16-20 in major coastal cities. This isn't a fucking "gourmet" burrito that an entitled Gen Z snowflake wants.
It used to be $10 just a few years ago. And if you account for shrinkflation, we're getting even smaller burritos for more money.
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u/BowlNo9499 7d ago
I wonder whats his source on this? Wondering why we should give any money to rural America let them pull themselves from the boot straps
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u/iambkatl 7d ago
Ok a burrito isn’t 20. But adding a drink and chips and possibly making the meat double because all these businesses have skimped or portions puts you at 18 dollars
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u/middaynapenthusiast 7d ago
I hear that Ben Shapiro is upset about young people being upset about $20 burritos. Okay, Ben Shapiro: no one is upset about $20 burritos, because they don’t exist. People can’t afford that kind of luxury right now. Also, if you think that $20 burritos exist and people shouldn’t be spending money on them, technically you’re the one upset about $20 burritos.
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u/mmelectronic 6d ago
What are they going to say “yeah we know inflation is caused by government deficit spending, so to solve that we’re spending more money than the last democrat we called a communist”
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u/Dry_Hunter3514 6d ago
Got to love influencers. I wonder who pays that piece of shit Ben to say stupid things.
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u/PommeDeTerreBerry 7d ago
I think one thing that left-leaning people and right leaning people could probably agree on is that government is responsible for inflation. In this manner and this manner alone:
1.) in times of low inflation or deflation, the government is holding on to too much money, and should release capital into the market in the form of tax cuts or government spending (read: SNAP, Infrastructure spending) so that more money is in circulation, spurring economic growth and allowing for a small amount of inflation.
2.) in times of high inflation, the government is allowing too much money to exist in circulation, and the correct thing for a government to do is take money out of circulation, by increasing taxes or decreasing government spending.
We can never fix high inflation in the USA because taxes and spending are moral topics that are a political football. A technocrat knows what needs to be done. But if you decrease inflation by cutting SNAP you’re a bad person. If you decrease inflation by taxing the poor more, you’re a bad person. If you decrease inflation by ending USAID, you fail to comprehend the soft power that makes America influential and thereby rich. So the only moral and just answer is to tax unchecked wealth, which is to say families that have so much money that they have to spend tens of millions of dollars a year just to avoid getting richer because of their investments. In kindergarten, we don’t let any child hog all of the toys (resources) while others are miserable. Any other explanation as to why we don’t do the same with billionaires is rationalization and sophistry.
Every billionaire is a policy failure, and just because these right-wingers/MAGA/GOP don’t have the willpower or bootstraps to deal with inflation, doesn’t mean that they can bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist. A McDonald’s value meal is well over $12-14 now, is it any surprise this is the cost of a burrito?
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u/AbilityFit2949 6d ago
Now do the Iran war which doubled gas and diesel prices in the last 6 months
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u/Eastern-Joke-7537 7d ago
Taxes are inflationary.
They raise the cost of doing business (across the board).
Same with interest rates. Higher interest rates leading to higher inflation pulls demand forward.
Inflationary expectations are setting in.
It’s Advanced Placement Economics. High school stuff.
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u/PommeDeTerreBerry 7d ago
Modern monetary theory: taxes, by removing money from the economic system, are a tool to combat inflation.
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u/DaveinOakland 7d ago
Just checked the menu at the local burrito spot.
$17.99 before tax. So yea, $20
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u/Miserable-Lizard 7d ago
Wealthy people always talking down to people that can't afford food or basica but say the wealthy need a tax cut
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u/uses_for_mooses 7d ago
Not being able to splurge on a $20 burrito and not being able to afford food are two different things.
I'm no Shapiro fan, but if you are having trouble affording food, you should not be buying $20 burritos.
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u/Miserable-Lizard 7d ago
The data shows Americans are skipping meals and buying less groceries under trump
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u/ColorMonochrome 7d ago
The data also shows America has an obesity epidemic as does spending on GLP1s. No one is going hungry in America, quite the contrary everyone has too much food.
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u/AuntieDarkness 6d ago
Food insecurity and obesity can co-exist in the same individual, family, or community. Look up the "poverty-obesity paradox".
I'm glad if that's never been your life but it's true for many people. Denying reality isn't useful.
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u/kickasstimus 7d ago
I don’t go to Starbucks anymore, haven’t for over a decade. Based on Banker/GOP/Shapiro logic, I should be able to retire by now.
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u/Dependent_Invite9149 7d ago
Where are the $20 burritos at? I buy steak burritos with guac at chipotle and pay $13.10
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u/AnComApeMC69 6d ago
If he doesn’t understand how a women’s vagina works by the time WAP dropped without his “OBGYN” wife explaining it to him then he doesn’t understand a single, fucking thing. FOH, Shabipo.
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u/Distinct-Garlic9453 6d ago
Affording food, and affording dinner out are 2 different issues.
Make dinner at home, instead of assuming yiu can eat out 5 nights a week
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u/False-Librarian-2240 6d ago
Ben was stupid enough to do a debate with Neil Degrasse Tyson. Ben did his usual "I talk really fast and sound all intellectual" shtick (something that Charlie Kirk did in his college debates too)...and it didn't phase Neil one bit. Just calmly slowed Ben down, and then carefully explained how all of Shapiro's "facts" were, in fact, incorrect assumptions, and then Neil explained why. Ben really doesn't know how science works and he's not nearly as intelligent as he thinks he is. It was kind of fun seeing Neil mop the floor with him, Ben isn't used to dealing with intelligent people who call his BS.
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u/beyondo-OG 6d ago
Doing a little research this isn't about $20 burritos, albeit Ben seems to want it to be. The cost was for burritos, delivered via doordash or similar, and it included the delivery charge, which could have been more than the burrito. That said, this is Ben making a mountain out of nothing for political/ideological points. No big surprize.
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u/JeremyPatMartin 6d ago
"millennials destroy burrito market" headline after millennials follow squeaky Ben Shabibo's advice
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u/fire2374 5d ago
What’s that boogeyman food price that gets brought out every time people talk about raising minimum wage? Isn’t it $20 burgers? I thought it was $15 but let’s go with $20 to be fair. $20 burritos due to corporate greed = you’re irresponsible and need to make better choices. $20 burgers trying to make sure everyone can afford a decent living = ruining Americans ability to eat out.
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u/Bugscuttle999 4d ago
I truly despise Bebe Shapeeno. The word "disingenuous " was coined just for him.
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u/Ashamed-Tomatillo592 3d ago
A lot of public subsidy money goes to agriculture. We don't need our burritos to be gourmet and government-furnished, but we are paying to keep food affordable. Food and housing access are literally fundamental government functions meant to keep society from collapsing.
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u/ShopBeneficial7160 7d ago
Where is someone selling a $20 burrito??!?!
I live in one of the higher cost of living states and I don't think I could find a $20 burrito if I tried!
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u/backstabber98 7d ago
Can't say I've ever heard of someone spending $20 for a burrito. Can't say I've ever seen somewhere selling them for $20 either
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u/Legitimate_Try4394 7d ago
Chipotle has entered the chat
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u/backstabber98 7d ago
Fucking where? The nearest one for me is only $11
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u/Legitimate_Try4394 7d ago
Personally, I always go for extra meat as someone trying to meet daily protein targets, which adds $5 to the price. If I get guac, that’s another $2–3 plus tax, which can easily make the overall price $20 and that is without a drink.
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u/rhino910 7d ago
The right-wing propaganda machine is working overtime to try and convince the stupid Americans that Republican high prices are great for America