McDonald's Might Be Preparing Customers For The End Of $1 Burgers

The tiered menu will include $1 favorites like the McChicken alongside more expensive, shareable items like the a $5 20-piece McNugget.

McDonald's CEO Donald Thompson said the new menu "expands on rather than dismisses the Dollar Menu."

But Venessa Wong at Bloomberg Businessweek has an interesting theory for why McDonald's is putting more expensive items on the menu.

"The new menu will help customers become accustomed to seeing the higher prices at low-end of the menu," Wong writes.

If this is true, McDonald's could be easing customers in to more expensive price points.

Food price inflation has made items on the Dollar Menu less profitable, with the $1 burger especially problematic after last year's droughts, reports Leslie Patton at Bloomberg News.

McDonald's needs to start charging $1.50 or $2 for Dollar Menu items, Peter Saleh, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, told Bloomberg.