If you’ve noticed that your McDonald’s order has gotten more expensive in the past couple of years, you’re not mistaken. McDonald’s prices were up approximately 10% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the third quarter of the prior year. Even more recently, menu price hikes helped McDonald’s top expectations for sales growth in the fourth quarter of 2022.
But some lucky parts of the United States have been blessed with relatively low McDonald’s costs in comparison to other regions. And for consumers wondering where in the country to look for the cheapest McDonald’s prices, a new study just answered that question for one of the most iconic McDonald’s items of all time: the Big Mac.
Online lending company CashNetUSA recently conducted a deep dive to uncover prices for the sandwich in every state in the U.S. and other countries using the McDonald’s website, delivery apps, and other websites that track how much fast-food items cost.
The study found that the cheapest Big Macs in the United States are being sold in Mississippi, coming at an estimated price of $3.91. While this isn’t as impressive when you consider that a Big Mac cost 45 cents when it was first introduced in the 1960s, it is low in comparison to some Big Mac prices CashNetUSA found in other parts of the United States.
The South in general seems to be a good option for the cheapest Big Mac finds. The study found that Arkansas is selling the second cheapest Big Macs, with an estimated price of $3.95, while Alabama came in third with an estimated price of $3.99.
On the other hand, if you want to know where the most expensive Big Macs are being sold in the United States, you should look very, very far southwest. With estimated prices of $5.31, the study found that Hawaii is selling the most expensive Big Macs in the country.
Several states located in the Northeast are not too far behind Hawaii. New York sells the second most expensive Big Macs in the United States, with an estimated price of $5.23. New Jersey, California, and Maryland are the only others with estimated Big Mac prices that surpass the $5 mark, with the sandwich going for $5.19, $5.11, and $5.03 in those states, respectively. States like Pennsylvania and Florida, which both had an estimated Big Mac price of $4.47, fell more in the middle on the cost spectrum.
While the Big Mac is undoubtedly a major fast food offering, it is only a drop in the bucket of the many, many items that make up the current market. Luckily for fast food fans who want more insight into how their favorite menu items are priced, there is a database that tracks prices nationwide for three other products in addition to the Big Mac: Taco Bell’s Crunchy Taco, Chipotle’s Chicken Burrito, and Chick-fil-A’s Chicken Sandwich.
Sign up for our newsletter!
Zoe Strozewski
