This sort of action is what we need across the economy. Cancellation or deferral.<p>Rent deferral, interest deferral, mortgage deferral... etc.<p>At the individual level maybe limit it to the lower 50%-70% of income earners. Cancel interest and utility/rent/mortgage payments for lower income population. Do it for 2-3 months.<p>The upper half will just eat into their savings some but won’t suffer like those living paycheck to paycheck.<p>I’m fine coming out of this with $15k less savings. Im not ok with my neighbor becoming homeless or permanently in debt because of it.
If a company like McDonalds can pull it off, that will most likely give them quite an advantage. Once things go back to normal, that would mean McDonalds franchise network is likely to be in omaprativley good shape. When competitor don't implement solutios like this, McDonalds would have quite a head start! Not to speak about the franchise owners, and their employees to a certain extent.
This is a good move on their part (assuming they go through with it). People tend to think of restaurant owners like this as “the rich”, but if you look at the numbers there’s actually not that much profit in a single restaurant. The only ones who make good money own a bunch of them. Even then, the profit margins are pretty low, and they’re going to struggle to remain profitable.
Next, it would be good if they would also cover the 90% of McDonalds workers who aren’t their direct employees. Pretty weak to say they can’t tell franchisees to follow their policy, and help cover the costs, when they can dictate how to run most other aspects of the business. Critical especially since these 500K workers are likely to need the income, and become a vector for the spread of the virus.<p><a href="https://www.eater.com/2020/3/16/21181862/are-mcdonalds-starbucks-and-other-chains-offering-paid-sick-leave-for-coronavirus" rel="nofollow">https://www.eater.com/2020/3/16/21181862/are-mcdonalds-starb...</a>
I suspect basically all commercial landlords are going to have to consider rent deferrals or outright eating 3-6 months of rent. The alternative very likely could be the majority of their properties simply becoming vacant, which isn't a good business stance for coming out of all this.
For context, McDonald's Corp buys the land (and building?) for each location. Franchisees then rent those from the McDonald's Corp in addition to their other franchise costs. Not all restaurant franchises work this way, as far as I know.
The actual title is:<p>"McDonald’s says it can’t estimate coronavirus impact to its business, it will consider rent deferrals for franchisees"
The least they can do. I was thinking of all of the strip mall style mom and pop places, and how rent and such would affect that. I cannot imagine a landlord evicting tenants any time soon, because who the hell is going to then rent the space?!