If McDonalds can't afford to pay a living wage at the local cost of living, nobody will immigrate to work for them.
You can fit 3 generations in a single family home in an American suburb of a mid-sized city, and half the world's population would either (a) consider that a QoL improvement or at least (b) put up with it for a while to remit back home.
For all the doom and gloom in the USA, it's still an incredibly rich country.
To be clear: I'm not making a moral statement here. This is a statement of fact, not a statement of ethical preference.
Can three people working at McDonalds own a single family home in an American suburb?
Someone working low-paid hourly wage work can probably make $20K. A few siblings + their parents = 5 people = $100K. Stagger availability schedules so there's always someone home with the kids, and share vehicles.
Suburb of top-tier cities? No. Cheapest suburb of a midwestern city? Absolutely.
Again, not saying it's reasonable. Just that it's possible.
So you argument essentially is that economic conditions dictate that within a few decade, there will be no restaurants in major cities.
Houses in towns big enough for a McDonald's are $100,000.
Not suburbs, just towns, but there will be services and a hospital and so on.
Three families can....
McDonalds et al. probably should've been investing a lot more in automating their kitchens. The fact that a huge percent of locations -- and all drive-thrus -- still use humans for the ordering process is, similarly, inexcusable.
Unless the US massively increases its low-skilled immigration quotes, robotics firms will be the FAANG equivalents of the 2020s-2030s.