Affordability remains a big issue for many Americans, and no issue at all for a smaller subset of them. There’s an awkwardness to this, as the economy can be measured in certain ways that imply things are fine, but it doesn’t feel that way to most people.
What’s a good measure of this? In terms of mass affordability, something cheap like a Big Mac works. For more nuance, the price of a full-size truck might be better? The Morning Dump aims for accurate representations of economic trends, but failing that, will settle for fun comparisons.
Clearly, the President is also worried about affordability, and is headed to Michigan to make the point that things are fine. Will people believe him? GM CEO Mary Barra says that the company’s shift to EVs was also fine. Will people believe her? And, finally, Scout argued that it was a separate company and therefore could sell directly to customers in Colorado. Dealers said they couldn’t. Guess who the board believed?
Full-Size Truck Transaction Price Hits $66,386 In December
Am I hungry? I might be hungry, because for some reason when I read Kelly Blue Book’s latest report on Average Transaction Price (ATP) I thought immediately of hamburgers. And not just any hamburger. A Big Mac. There’s something about the Big Mac that feels like a good measure of pricing, in that its inputs are both essential agricultural goods and rent/labor. You can also get one almost anywhere.
Full-size trucks are also available everywhere, and they, too, have numerous expensive inputs. The difference between a hamburger and a full-sized truck is that most people who buy a truck could probably save a huge amount of money by buying something smaller or less-featured, whereas a Big Mac is an effective way to get a lot of calories at a low price (it’s neither the most efficient nor the healthiest, but it is calorie-laden).
In that way, a truck represents both a necessity for some (work, transportation) and also a somewhat premium good. No shock, then, that the industry ATP reached a new record high of $50,326 overall, given how strong truck sales were:
Strong sales of full-size pickup trucks also pushed the ATP higher last month. With more than 233,000 full-size pickups sold, December was the best month for the segment in five years and the sixth best in the past decade. The average price paid for a full-size pickup in December was $66,386, slightly below the record set in October 2025. In December, combined revenue from retail and fleet sales of full-size pickups surpassed $15 billion for the first time, according to Cox Automotive estimates.
“We typically see elevated prices in December, as the market delivers a strong mix of high-end and luxury vehicle sales,” said Cox Automotive Executive Analyst Erin Keating. “It’s important to remember, the Kelley Blue Book ATP is a reflection of what was sold in a given month, not what is available. Last month, nearly 20% of shoppers bought luxury, a peak for 2025 – and that doesn’t include the volume of high-end pickups that were snapped up by affluent shoppers.”
American consumers and businesses purchased $15 billion worth of trucks in December alone! That’s a wild stat. If you take the average price of a Big Mac in Texas from last year and divide it into $66,386, you get a little over 14,000 Big Macs. That’s a lot of burgers.
Trucks are profit centers for automakers, and they’ll continue to get nicer and more luxurious until people stop buying nicer and more luxurious trucks. It’s possible that the removal of some costs related to effifiency will go away (active grille shutters, for example) under the new environmental regime, though it’s likely those same costs will be eaten up by spending on fuel.
Until then, I expect both trucks and Big Macs to increase in price.
President Trump Travels To Michigan, A State Hit By Higher Prices And Job Cuts
Clearly aware that the economy remains a prime issue for many Americans, President Trump is traveling to Michigan to visit a Ford factory and attend the Detroit Economic Club to try to bolster his credentials. Will it work? The perennial swing state might be skeptical, according to a new poll of Michigan voters from The Detroit News:
The survey found that 48% of respondents said Trump’s economic policies have made the national economy overall weaker, while 38% said his policies have made the economy stronger. About 10% said his suite of tariffs, tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks and more has had no impact.
Asked to grade Trump on his handling of the economy, twice as many respondents gave the president an “F” as gave him an “A.”
A 44% plurality of likely voters gave Trump a failing grade of a D or F, while 38% said he deserves an A or B grade, according to the poll results.
November is far away, and it does seem like some jobs will move from Canada and Mexico to the United States eventually. In the short term, however, uncertainty and supplier disruption have led to an increasing unemployment rate. If this sounds like a replay of 2023 and 2024, when the Biden Administration pointed to healthy employment while voters cried about costs, then you’re not wrong.
In Michigan, it’s the independent voters who tend to swing things, so this should be interesting.
GM’s Mary Barra ‘Would Have Made The Same Decision’ On EVs
General Motors is, at the moment, by far the most successful American electric car company other than Tesla. It was #2 in sales, its vehicles are largely competitive, and they are not huge money losers. That’s not a bad position to be in these days.
GM CEO Mary Barra spoke to a crowd at the Automotive Press Association annual event this week, and she said she doesn’t regret a lot of the company’s decisions.
“As I go back and look, everything that we knew at that point in time we would have made the same decision,” Barra said. “Once someone buys an EV, they’re 80% more likely to buy another EV. Some of our ICE vehicles are more fuel efficient than a hybrid.”
Barra has said that despite lower-than-expected consumer demand, GM’s electric vehicles remain the company’s North Star.
“Our destination is to get to the all-EV future we’ve been talking about,” she said. “Once we have a more robust charging infrastructure … we’re going to be pragmatic about it,” Barra said. “It will take longer, without the incentives.”
Which gas-powered cars are more efficient than which hybrids? I am curious! Maybe a diesel truck versus a hybrid truck? IDK, that’s a strange one. Other than that statement, I do think that Barra is pretty much on the money here. [Ed Note: I still think skipping hybrids was silly, but I respect GM’s EV efforts. -DT]. Will the EV transition be 100% and tomorrow? No. Will it be the majority of the market eventually? Yes. And GM is well-positioned in that regard at the moment.
Scout Can Sell Directly In Colorado
I, like all reasonable people, am excited about the prospect of the Scout brand. It’s offering a handsome, rugged, range-extended SUV and a similarly good-looking truck. Dealers have been a little less excited, pointing out that Volkswagen has agreements with its dealers that forbid it from selling cars directly to consumers.
This is especially important for VW dealers, who lack an interesting or exciting product to sell outside of, like, a Golf R. Dealers are suing in multiple states, and Colorado is the first to come out with a ruling, according to Automotive News:
Colorado’s Motor Vehicle Dealer Board voted 6-2on Dec. 16 to approve Scout’s application to become a dealer in the state, according to a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Specialized Business Group, which includes the board.
The board has nine members, but the president of the board generally votes only if needed to break a tie, the spokesperson said.
The article points out that dealers can basically appeal at this point or allow Scout to see if it can operate without them. This ruling doesn’t impact a similar lawsuit in California, which is the biggest EV market in the country.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Fiona Apple is probably one of the most-selected artists here, and I’m just relistening to “When The Pawn…” as a way to start the day, letting the algo take over from there and pick more songs. “Get Gone” always hits me right in the chest.
The Big Question
What’s a more accurate (or amusing way) to talk about truck costs? It’s $66,386 divided by whatever.
Top graphic images: Ford; McDonalds; DepositPhotos.com
Let’s stop and think about this.
If the goal is to drive auto manufacturing out of Canada & Mexico, then they’ve no domestic production to protect of themselves. Which means that they’ve no incentive to maintain any protection against imports from places like China.
The benefit of USMCA was that it helped protect the American-3 in more than your own country.
What’s the long game here, Michigan, who are you planning on selling your cars to if everyone else doesn’t want to buy American?
Yeah that’s a great point.
I’m going with a divisor of zero, for the infinitely increasing prices and sizes of these wasteful devices .
Scout, good for them. May they plough the greater returns into a VW quality program.
Barra who carra.
No words for the wizard of grift and his reality distortion field.
In my Pre-Euro travels about Europe, McDonalds was always a good comparison to get a feel for the purchasing power of the local currency. It would be interesting to chart BigMacs per Truck over time to see if the relationship is linear. I suspect that it is not…meaning that one of them has gotten less affordable over time compared with the other. I’m having a hard time guessing which one because they are both pretty ridiculous right now.
A pure gas subcompact like the spark (stupid name to waste on a ICE vehicle) might be more fuel efficient than a big hybrid SUV but that’s an irrelevant comparison imho since nobody will reasonably be cross-shopping those.
$4.68 seems like a lot for a Big Mac with 3.2 oz of beef* when I can whip up a much better burger with twice the beef content in my own kitchen for about $1.50
*https://eathealthy365.com/the-real-weight-of-a-big-mac-a-complete-breakdown/
It’s always cheaper to cook at home versus buying the same thing in a restaurant, and it’s often better. Convenience adds cost. I’d rather make my own burger too.
Convenience is relative. If you’re far from home and the alternative is to do everything from shopping to prepping to frying up a burger on a campfire then McDs is certainly more convenient.
If however you are already at home, you have everything on hand, especially a pile of pre-frozen patties and buns in the pantry it’s arguably a LOT more convenient to just make a burger at home than run out to McDs to wait in line.
Given the number of pickup trucks being used not for truck stuff, but as suburban status symbols and kid-haulers, as well as their increasing unaffordability for actual blue-collar workin’ folks, a Big Mac doesn’t quite fit the vibe anymore. We’re going to need something a bit more Lakeway- or Georgetown-adjacent for this one, folks. We must enter the twisted psyche of the man who’s traded sensibility and fuel economy for shiny chrome and macho aesthetics. Dudes who moved out of California and make hating on their old state their entire personality. Guys who complain that the ol’ ball n’ chain wouldn’t let them have a TRX. Little-box buyers in suburbia whose bed got used for a couple bags of mulch that one time. The HOA won’t let them do lava rocks, after all.
It’s a dark and dismal place full of terrible yeehaw cosplay and an obsession with BBQ-smoking everything, but here we go. The average $66,386 pickup costs about as much:
A little over 1,310 short-sleeve PFGs fishing shirts even though they’ve been once, maybe, and had to hide open containers from cops on Lake Travis~240 Tecovas cowboy boots for the officeAbout 55 large Big Green EggsRoughly 22,500 cups of Summermoon’s nasty oak-fired coffee (black, no tip)About 200 middish-range felt Stetsons that will never looked quite right and lives in the closet after your buddy’s corny “rustic Hill Country”-themed wedding out in Spicewood660ish of those Texas-flag polo shirts (one of which is appropriately named The Big D for you Carrollton or Frisco types who are too scared to actually enter Dallas)Around 3,350 cases of Lone Star2,210 Grunt Style t-shirts. Not that you actually served as a “grunt” or anything, you just like the aesthetic.7,150ish Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich meals200ish 45-quart Yeti coolersA little over 3,300 of those faux-wood printed signs from Hobby Lobby the wife keeps adding to the houseNearly 1,420 (huh huh blaze it, amirite??) gallon-jugs of Mother’s Pro-Strength Wheel CleanerBless your heart, and welp, I guess I’ll miss you on the trails.
To be fair though PFG shirts are so dang comfy for us heavier fellas during the summer. I don’t fish but own a few of them, also have a yeti cooler, and want a pair of Tecovas. Am I cosplaying blue collar, Texas truck guy? Yes, but I also am a factory pretend-ngineer, love my Miata, and Civic Type R. Still want a Super Duty Tremor though.
Oh, no. I don’t blame anyone for some of these (especially as someone with a bunch of Yeti stuff in the cupboards). I, too, was tempted when I saw the egg smokers in the recently-tested kit for sale at work.
There’s just…a type of guy. The type is defined by the full picture of trying too hard, not by the individual items on the list.
Testify!
goshdarnit, it always flattens bulleted lists into…this
I’m all for creating an Average Transaction Price (ATP) based Big Mac Index for Trucks (BMI-T) to be tracked here in The Morning Dump (TMD). Change over time (t) is critical for spotting trends, as is comparison to another common consumer good, say… salami-based storage solutions (SbSS)
Looking forward to regular TMD updates of ATP BMI-T and SbSS over t!
The Big Mac was introduced in 1968. Do we have the data to track the trend of ATP BMI-T all the way back in time?
“effifiency”?!? We don’t need no stinkin’ effifiency around here!
That number must include 3/4 and 1 ton trucks? I know you can buy 70k+ half-tons these days, but I don’t see enough of that trim level to believe that people are buying them enough to drive the average that high. Most of the trucks I looked at about a year ago were in the low to mid 50s (and those are the trim levels you see people driving every day), with a handful in the 60s.
FWIW an XLT F150 Crew Cab is $60k+ now MSRP, Lariats are all $70k+ The 2021 F150 I almost ordered for $51k is now $64k spec’d the exact same way. A diesel 3/4+ is an obscene amount of money now. My neighbor’s ’24 F250 Lariat Tremor Diesel was $92k
Nobody pays MSRP for trucks though. And even at MSRP, more than half of truck buyers would have to be shelling out for a Lariat than an XLT, never mind all the lower trim levels they sell a lot of. I can buy a 66k average if you have those 92k trucks pulling it up, but I suspect the half ton alone average is much closer to that 51k overall average than 66k.
You think big macs are affordable and cheap?
I can’t recall the last time I heard anyone call them that.
An appropriate comparison has to be a truck that arrives different from the way you ordered it, then is replaced with another wrong version, and the company ignores all complaints.
Of course, they keep your money.
I see you also once owned a Chevy
In order to accurately assess the use of hamburgers as a comparison to truck prices, we’re going to need to see a chart showing the average cost of a Big Mac over the last few decades.
you also have to take into account the state you are buying said Big Macs in.
https://media.timeout.com/images/106270774/image.webp
Hence why I suggested an average. 😉
For 30+ years (1960s–1990s), a new car consistently cost about 6,000–7,000 Big Macs.
The 2000s and 2020s stand out, with cars jumping closer to 9,000 Big Macs, reflecting faster growth in car prices than fast-food prices.
During my starving-student college years (around 1990), I could buy a large 1-topping pizza (carryout) from my local Domino’s (2 places down from my apartment) for $3.25. This would provide 2-3 meals for me, depending.
I used to measure all my food purchases against that unit:
Any fast food meal would have to be 2 pizzas or less. Anything more than 4 pizzas had to be a sitdown place with wait staff (and perhaps special occasions).
Currently, the local Domino’s charges $8.99 for the same deal.
So, in 1990 dollars, 1 Full Sized Truck: 20,400 pies
In 2026 dollars: ~7380 pies.
Inflation…
I remember being able to get two soft tacos and a bean burrito for under 2 bucks. That was back when Taco Bell’s 59/79/99 menu allowed us to save a lot of our cash for important things like beer.
Yes – those were the days!
I would splurge and get the Taco Supremes. I needed to get my veggies from somewhere.
In 1985 a reasonably equipped new Toyota Camry was about $12,000 which in today’s money is $36,000 (all numbers are rounded for ease). A nicely equipped Ford F-150 XLT Lariat SuperCab would’ve also been around $12,000 so in today’s money again $36,000.
My local Toyota dealer currently has 62 Camrys listed in inventory. The most popular model, the XLE, is $35,909. My local Ford dealer has over 18 F150 XLTs listed in inventory. Most MSRPs are right around $65K, a few $61K, a handful $70K.
So in 1985, a nicely equipped F-150 costs 1 Camry. In 2026, taking the middle number of my local dealer, a nicely equipped F150 costs 1.8 Camrys.
Most interesting to me is that a Toyota Camry (in terms of monetary value) costs almost the same as it did 40 years ago!
Sounds like we should be using Camrys as a unit–it works for both buying power and mass and size!
so. the big 3 are jacking up the price and sticking to us.
Eliminate the Hummer loophole and cap loan terms to a max of 60 months and this all goes away.
I believe it on trucks. I just went to the Silicon Valley Auto Show. The cheapest Ram on display was $70k. Most of them were around $90k! The 392 Wrangler was $106k!!!
$28.16 is apparently the average hourly wage in the US. So, it is worth 2357 hours of work, which is about 294 days or about 59 (40 hr) weeks of labor (pre-tax).
That’s my favorite metric for it. The average pickup price vs average wage.
It’s worth 9157 hours at minimum wage (which, coincidentally, is about how much I just spent on lunch, so it’s worth over 9000 of today’s lunch).
Are trucks a necessity? Yes. New trucks? No. Most of the people that use trucks for work-work in these parts are driving old Tacomas or Chevy 1500’s with 150,000 miles on the clock. You’re not buying new if you’re throwing a bunch of sharp tools in the mud and dragging muddy boots in the cab.
Tax-wise, the “right” move is to buy the most fully-depreciated pile you can, as you get 70-odd cents per mile deduction, irrespective of what you’re paying for the vehicle.
Eh. Fleets disagree. You need to calculate TCO, including maintenance, repairs and resale value.
The harder your business uses trucks, the cheaper it is to buy or lease new trucks and run them for a few years, rinse and repeat.
Say you buy a cheap truck for 20 grand. Run it hard for 4 years, and the transmission goes. Now you’re out the cost of the transmission, and the downtime- Could be thousands in lost wages. Or, you let it go for barely anything. Let’s add in the cost of out of warranty repairs. (say $2500 a year) So we’re at $30,000 in expenses, plus the lost billing for the workers who couldn’t do their jobs during the above fiasco.
Now let’s buy a new truck for $50k. It’s under warranty, so not much to worry about other than fuel and oil changes. Use it for 4 years, it’s worth $35k. Sell, total cost $15,000 for the same time.
This is obviously simplistic and ignores a bunch of stuff like fuel savings, and the boost you your company’s image by always running ‘current’ trucks.
Regarding physical damage:
A. Insurance
B. Way easier to justify a $2500 repair for a new fender and headlight when said damage doesn’t financially “total” a semi-worthless vehicle.
Vehicles depreciate, but the repairs don’t.
The argument from RC is that most of the blue collar guys near him are driving older used. Same here in MA. Fleet is a different animal from the local handyman or roofer. Lots of GMT800s around me.
It’s a huge difference when you have a fleet of 1 vs 100. First, you drive YOUR truck much different than you drive your company’s truck (see cops chasing suspects over medians, through cornfields, etc). Second, if your truck craps out, guess you got yourself the day off. A pain but doable. But managing a fleet of rust buckets? No thanks.
You are making my case
Yup. Sorry I replied to the wrong comment.
Doesn’t really matter if it’s 1 or 100. If you work full time and *truly need* a truck to complete your work, driving a beater is a false economy.
My experience is construction. A lot of guys don’t really need the truck they roll up in, almost all the materials show up on a flatbed. Many aren’t compensated for their vehicle use other than mileage. End of the day, a Honda Civic is perfectly adequate for carrying a lunch bag and a tool belt. Guys just want the image, and will drive a shitty truck instead of a practical commuter car. They whine about the cost to run it when they have to drive 40 minutes to a job, and then no-show twice a month.
If you runa part-time business doing odd jobs, then sure. An old truck is fine.
I own a small building company with my wife, and we pretty much only hire workers or subcontractors with clean, well-maintained, unmodified vehicles. I know it sounds harsh, but a person’s choice of car, combined with a few other factors like their age is highly reflective of their personality, lifestyle, work ethic and attention to detail.
this is a really helpful insight, from someone with firsthand experience. Thank you for sharing.
Glad it was helpful! I’m not an expert by any means, it’s just what I’ve observed working in a couple of blue collar industries.
I’m really not trying to be mean spirited about it, I have a ton of respect for the people who get things done and make do with less. I just think it’s easy to lionize that lifestyle without considering the extra effort, missed income and hidden expenses that go into making it happen.
End of the day it’s financial literacy, and it can go both ways.
We see people beating their heads against a wall, wasting time and pissing off their customers with shitty equipment, when they have the skills and work to do more with more.
We also see guys who finance expensive trucks they can’t afford, because they associate the nice truck with success, and don’t understand that “correlation =/= causation.” They don’t really have the work to justify it, and bankrupt themselves in the process.
I also know a dude who runs a mint ‘90’s RAM dump truck, for his seasonal arborist business. He only works in the summer, and keeps the truck parked so it doesn’t rust away in the salt. He lives a solitary, incredibly minimalist off-grid lifestyle. Lots of way to play the game!
When I was in high school I knew a middle aged gentleman who drove a Honda that had to have been 20 years old. Looked like he just drove it off the lot. He taught me a lot without saying a word.
Let’s put that pickup price into perspective.
With that amount you could buy 22,202 Taco Bell Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos.
Or 46,101 Little Tree air fresheners.
Most importantly, you could buy BOTH right and left side taillights for a 2CV. Assembly includes bulb holders (but not bulbs.). How many? 409 sets.
Ok but are you pricing the Little Trees based on individual or value packs? Asking the important questions…
Individually at a unit price of $1.44
The average new truck costs (21) 6×10 utility trailers that have higher payload ratings and a cargo area 71% larger (versus 6.5 foot bed)
Sure, but now you need a Super Duty Alpha Male Mansplaining Edition to tow all those trailers.
Hah!
Don’t forget the Big-D package.
A truck is 3.68 MY 2024 Mitsubishi Mirages, at $18,015 MSRP
Thanks for the link to Kelly Blue. Interesting chart is the average purchases prices by size categories. December, year over year, compact sale prices held steady but subcompacts went up by 3k! No affordable car for you, come back never!
What subcompacts are still on the market? No more Fit, Yaris, Soul, Rio, Spark, Sonic or Accent. Mirage and Versa are on their way out, too.
Yeah, it’s pretty much just the Mini Cooper and Fiat 500e.
When it comes to ratios, the most logical thing is to use the smallest common denominator. And when it comes to trucks, that denominator is the Suzuki Mighty Boy. Thus, I propose we use the ‘Mighty Boy Index’ by adjusting its final year MSRP for inflation and dividing every new truck by that price. All window stickers will feature prices in “MB”s and not dollars, so you can directly understand how much unnecessary extra truck you are buying.
I thought you were going to compare how many big macs = 1 truck today vs 20 yrs ago, 50 yrs ago etc. I’m curious how the ratio has changed. You’d also need to include something like “number of big macs a person can purchase with an average worker’s daily pay today vs 20 yrs ago vs 50 yrs ago.”
Y’all have done something similar whenever you compare the cost/content of a Civic today vs its first model year and I’ve found those stats really interesting.
Based on my buying and shopping habits, a 2026 F150 costs 1.4 2018 F150s. That is my not-so-fun comparison to truck costs.
Ouch!
Our 2024 Chevy Trax LS had an MSRP of $22,905.00.
It weighs 3,062 lbs.
$22,905 ÷ 3062 = $7.48 per pound.
If we are going off the average price of a Big Mac at $5.79, then the Chevy Trax beats the Big Mac price-per-pound by about $4.50 (a pound of Big Mac is about $12.19 on average)!
Holy smokes that’s a good deal. I paid more than that for the 1/4 grassfed cow I put in the freezer last fall.
How about price divided by the IQ of the owners?
IMHO, you have to be beyond stupid to pay that much for one of these things, even with dollars as small as they are currently. And based on the experiences of those I know who own recent trucks from all three US brands, they are astoundingly junky crap. But at least the check engine lights and electrical glitches are free while they are under warranty!
I’ve got a book on the Africar. Which was a plywood chassis Citroen gs powered car from the 80s. A line in there always stuck with me. Land cruisers land rovers and Peugeot wagons were preferred in Africa over American trucks. Since the truck frames typically cracked with less than 20k miles of driving in Africa.
It’s like we finally learned about boxed frames and decided we needed to find another way to make them unreliable longterm. Canbus for the win.
The sad thing is that canbus SHOULD be a boon for reliability, as it eliminates so much wiring. Yet they still stuff it up by have seemingly zero error correction. A problem with the taillight should not make the thing run improperly. Better makes have completely separate busses for different major functions to keep that sort of thing from happening.