it’s not magic. there are inputs and outputs. raise prices by a buck a pizza. people will absolutely pay it. problem solved.
A pizza place in the center of a popular city with high ratings probably can up the prices.
Some people around these parts have ardently defended that 100k USD is poverty wage and that having a net worth of 1 million doesn't make you rich.
So I'm inclined to definitely not believe "working class".
You could have a point if you didn't picked an example from an industry where you count on customers to expense additional charges to subsidize employees' wages in the form of tipping.
This blend of slippery slope argument is all fine and dandy, but the key point of this discussion is that there are operational expenses and revenue and if your business plan depends on a never-ending inflow of cheap labor from people willing to work for below-poverty wages to drive down your operational expense then not only is your business model completely unrealistic but you also have to take a step back and seriously considering your net contribution to society.
I mean, think about it: why is a 1000$ pizza supposed to be a ridiculous idea but 8$/hour to make said pizza is not shocking? Is it reasonable to assume that the person making the pizza should be forced to work about 3 hours making pizzas before he could afford one of his own?
"You could do better if you raised prices a dollar" and "you would do worse if you raised prices a thousand dollars" can absolutely both be true. In fact, in many, many circumstances, they will be.
Perhaps in some cases, but far from always. Down the street from there are 3 'cheap' pizza places within a ~5 minute walk from each other, that all server basically identical quality pizza at essentially the same price. If any one of those where to raise their prices people would almost certainly not pay and just go to one of the other places instead.
There is also a 4th place that serves much higher quality pizza and charges 50-100% more than any of the other places as it is. If they where to raise their price by a buck then people would no doubt still pay since the people who go to that place have already proven themselves less price sensitive.
In terms of total market, the effects are well studied in the field of labor economics.
Big producers can easily absorb the added labor costs. They outsource some elements of their labor (prep work). They simplify menus for better economies of scale. They cut back hours on marginal employees and add hours for high productivity ones.
Small shops without economies of scale struggle and go out of business. A restaurant owner that owns 1 restaurant is likely working full time to keep it afloat. The added time to respond to the current labor market can break the camels back. vs. McMegacorp that has people that sit around and optimize cost all day long.
So the trade off is more McDonalds and Chipotle and less Albertos burrito stands.
They are basically taking the economy of scale that a large chain previously exclusively had and bringing it to the market to street sales (e.g. mom & pop joints). They simply took what they were doing for institutional food service and expanded it because it's substantially more profitable for them than selling the raw ingredients.