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The Burger Index

Composite "Time-to-Earn" Purchasing Power Index

How much of your life for a burger?

The Composite Burger "Time-to-Earn" Index measures how many minutes the median worker must work to afford a standardised fast-food burger. It's a proxy for purchasing power parity that doesn't confuse itself with exchange rates and theoretical baskets of goods. Just common burgers, wages, and time.

Countries

65

Across 3 tiers

Fastest

12 min

Luxembourg

Slowest

245 min

Sri Lanka

US Median

16.5 min

CV across states: 7.0%

Global Index

Whiskers show the "chaos" error bar ā€” wider bars mean less reliable data due to inflation volatility. If two countries' whiskers overlap, their purchasing power is statistically indistinguishable.

Shape indicates data quality: ā— circle = grade A/B (strong data), ā—† diamond = grade C (partial), ā–² triangle = grade D (weak). Opacity also decreases with lower quality. Hover for details.

Methodology

A

Composite Burger Price

Average the confirmed local prices of a McDonald's Big Mac, Burger King Whopper, and KFC Colonel/Zinger Burger. If a chain lacks confirmed data, drop it and adjust the denominator.

(Pā‚ + Pā‚‚ + ... + Pā‚™) / n = Composite Price

B

Time-to-Earn

Divide the composite price by the local median hourly wage, multiply by 60. Both values are in local currency ā€” the currency cancels out. The result is minutes of work needed to buy one composite burger.

(Price / Wage) Ɨ 60 = Minutes

C

Chaos Error Bar

Multiply the base minutes by the country's inflation volatility (10-year Ļƒ of CPI). This creates a confidence interval that accounts for delayed wage data and economic instability.

Minutes Ɨ Ļƒ = Ā± Error

Tier Definitions

Tier 1 ā€” High & Stable

Low time-to-earn, low volatility. High, stable purchasing power for the median worker.

Tier 2 ā€” High & Volatile

Low-to-moderate time-to-earn, but higher susceptibility to sudden economic shocks.

Tier 3 ā€” Emerging

High time-to-earn. Emerging economies with low median wages relative to local costs.

Data Quality

Grade A

3

3 confirmed + direct wage

Grade B

33

2+ confirmed or 3 + derived

Grade C

16

1 confirmed price

Grade D

13

Weak / estimated only

Transparency notes

  • PRICES Only confirmed burger-only prices from official menus or The Economist's Big Mac Index are used. Estimated prices (multiplier-derived) have been removed. If a chain lacks confirmed data, it's dropped and the composite averages fewer items.
  • WAGES 3 of 65 countries use a direct statistical median from national bureaus. The remaining 62 derive a median from OECD average wages using country-specific median/mean ratios (typically 0.78-0.87).
  • CURRENCY All prices and wages are in local currency. The time-to-earn calculation divides local price by local wage ā€” currency cancels out entirely. No exchange rate conversions are used.
  • STALENESS Wage data is typically 12-18 months delayed. The "chaos" error bar (inflation volatility Ļƒ) accounts for this. Countries with high inflation have wider bars.
  • MARKET POSITION In OECD economies, McDonald's/BK/KFC serve as mass-market baselines ā€” their prices reflect the cost floor for a prepared burger. In some emerging markets these chains are positioned as aspirational dining, targeting the urban middle class rather than the general population. Where this applies, the country is flagged as "aspirational" ā€” its Time-to-Earn may overstate the true cost of a baseline meal relative to local alternatives. 13 of 65 countries carry this flag.

Data Sources & Update Frequency

All data runs on a priority chain ā€” higher-trust sources override lower ones. Everything is re-checked monthly on the 1st.

Burger Prices

  1. Local store websites ā€” chain's own published menu prices
  2. Delivery apps ā€” UberEats, Deliveroo, Grab etc. (item-level)
  3. Big Mac Index ā€” The Economist via bigmacindex.app (twice yearly)

Higher-priority sources overwrite lower ones per country per chain.

Wage Data

  1. National statistics offices ā€” BLS, ONS, ABS, Stats NZ etc. (direct median)
  2. ILOSTAT ā€” ILO global earnings database (wider coverage)
  3. OECD ā€” average annual wages (derived to median via ratios)

Direct median always beats derived. Lags 12-18 months.

Inflation Volatility

IMF World Economic Outlook ā€” 10-year rolling standard deviation of CPI inflation. Used for the "chaos" error bar.

Updated when IMF publishes revisions (typically April & October).

US State Breakdown

The US coefficient of variation across states is 7.0%. Below the 10% threshold, suggesting a single US number is reasonable ā€” but the breakdown is here anyway.

Range: Massachusetts (12.7 min) to Mississippi (17.6 min)

Why this is different

Not another Big Mac Index

The Economist's Big Mac Index converts everything to USD and asks "is this currency over/undervalued?" That's a currency question, not a living standards question. It tells you about exchange rate distortions, not about what life actually feels like for the person buying the burger.

This index never converts currencies. It divides the local burger price by the local median wage ā€” both in the same currency, which cancels out entirely. The result is minutes of life traded for a burger. That number is directly comparable across countries without any exchange rate assumptions.

Why burgers?

A burger from a global chain bakes in non-tradable local costs: commercial rent, local logistics, utilities, and labour. The raw ingredients (beef, wheat, chicken) are globally traded commodities with hedged prices ā€” but cooking and serving them is a purely local manufacturing process. The final price is a micro-basket of local economic reality.

Using the median wage (not mean) prevents billionaires from skewing the picture. The 50th-percentile worker is the person this index is about.

Known limitations

  • 1 In 13 countries, international fast-food chains are aspirational rather than mass-market. A Big Mac in Mumbai doesn't occupy the same market position as one in Melbourne. Time-to-Earn in these markets overstates the true cost of a baseline meal. Each is flagged accordingly.
  • 2 Most countries currently only have confirmed Big Mac data ā€” BK and KFC prices are harder to source reliably without meal-vs-burger contamination. The composite is often a single data point, not three.
  • 3 Wage data lags 12-18 months. In hyperinflationary economies (Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela), the real Time-to-Earn may have shifted significantly since the wage figure was published. The error bar accounts for this, but it's a band-aid on a structural delay.
  • 4 Wage derivation: only 3 of 65 countries have a direct statistical median. The rest derive median from average wages using assumed ratios ā€” a source of systematic error in countries with highly skewed income distributions.