> People buying more "meals" or "combos" at Mickey D's has been positively correlated to average household income and blah blah economic indicators over the yea

> People buying more "meals" or "combos" at Mickey D's has been positively correlated to average household income and blah blah economic indicators over the years. You are saying it as if it was some sort of a profound piece of information. Of course it's positively correlated with the average household income, this is a typical "eat out experience". There's a bunch of other indicators which are even better correlated with the average household income, for example the "average household income" itself. The better question here would be "does it give me any way of assessing the future of the household income" and I bet it doesn't.