Alabama spends how much on fast food? Where we rank among the states

Don’t reach for those fries just yet, Alabama – you may need that money later on.

Financial site WalletHub is out with a new analysis that ranks Alabama as seventh among the states paying the most for fast food.

And many of its neighbors in the South are also feeling it in the wallet as well as the belly.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices at limited-service restaurants have risen by an average of 47% over the last 10 years, which is worse than the rate of inflation over that time.

Yet not all income levels are the same around the U.S.

To rank the states, WalletHub looked at the price of hamburgers, pizza and chicken sandwiches across the 50 states. It then adjusted the resulting figure to the median monthly income in each state for each ranking.

To arrive at the list, it used data from the U.S. Census and the Council for Community and Economic Research.

Thank God for Mississippi, as it ranked at the top, with a fast food meal costing residents 0.47% of their median monthly household income.

The main reason why Mississippi ranks first is that median household income: $54,915, the lowest in the nation.

For example, the same fast food purchases would only cost 0.29% of the median monthly household income in Massachusetts, which ranked at the bottom.

New Mexico came in second, followed by Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia and Louisiana.

A fast food meal in Alabama costs you 0.43% of the median monthly household income, and for many of the same reasons as Mississippi.

And there you find a paradox – Southern states rank toward the bottom of the country in food prices. But because median earnings are so low, fast food still eats up a large percentage of income.