I mean, McDonald's manages to pay employees in Europe a living wage, and it didn't make the food completely unaffordable.

On the other hand, in the states, for a small meal just to yourself it's more than $10, closer to $15 a lot of the time.

So the prices are going up here and they're still not paying people worth a damn. I wonder what the disconnect here could be?

From what I understand, their sales are down, and so they've jacked up prices to fix the gap.