A Sausage, Egg and Cheese McGriddle meal is $5.99 in Montgomery AL, but $9.19 in New York NY.

I don't think this proves anything at all, but certainly not about wages. Food in big cities is often 2-3x the cost, which you can attribute to:

a) Customers having higher salaries

b) Property being massively more expensive

c) In the case of NYC, much higher property taxes

d) Yes, perhaps the cost of labor as well

Seems really hard to draw any conclusion given all of that.

>I don't think this proves anything at all

It absolutely disproves the statement "McDonald's where minimum wage is $15 don't really charge that much more than the places where it's $7.25"

McDonalds charges >50% more in this comparison of $15 vs. federal minimum wage locales.

I'm not making any claims whatsoever about why the price is higher in NYC. I just want people to stop relying on the canard "McDonalds prices are similar everywhere" during this debate.

Fair enough. You're right, and my response was attacking a straw man argument that you never made - sorry about that.

What's your source for those? I checked UberEats and it's $5.06 in Seattle.

How much of the difference is wage and how much is rent?

It's a lot more risky for the business though, which means that more marginal areas will not have a McDonald's if they can't do the volume.