The strikers are seeking wages of $15 per hour—about twice the minimum wage.
If McDonald's doubled wages for all employees, including CEO Don Thompson, Big Macs would cost 68 cents more, reports Caroline Fairchild at The Huffington Post.
Dollar Menu items would cost 17 cents more, according to HuffPo.
Fairchild cites a University of Kansas researcher, who crunched numbers to see what would happen if McDonald's doubled the salary of every employee then passed that cost on entirely to consumers.
Only 17% of McDonald's revenue goes toward salary and benefits, according to the report.
That means that the company could increase wages without passing that cost to consumers, and simply make a smaller profit.
McDonald's CEO Don Thompson told Bloomberg TV last week that the company is an “above minimum-wage employer.”
McDonald's pays an average hourly wage of $7.81, according to Glassdoor. This puts it just above the national average of about $7.50.