| Country | Min Wage/hr (USD/hr) |
Big Mac
price
(USD)
|
Hours to earn Big
Mac
|
| Australia | $ 16.88 | $ 4.94 | 0.3 |
| New Zealand | $ 11.18 | $ 4.05 | 0.4 |
| Japan | $ 8.17 | $ 4.16 | 0.5 |
| South Korea | $ 4.31 | $ 3.19 | 0.7 |
| Malaysia | $ 1.24 | $ 2.34 | 1.9 |
| Thailand | $ 1.21 | $ 2.46 | 2.0 |
| China | $ 0.80 | $ 2.44 | 3.1 |
| India | $ 0.28 | $ 1.62 | 5.8 |
| Indonesia | $ 0.42 | $ 2.46 | 5.9 |
| Afghanistan | $ 0.57 | $ 3.51 | 6.2 |
| Sierra Leone | $ 0.03 | $ 4.08 | 136.0 |
This indicator using Big Mac to measure exchange rates was invented by The Economist in 1986 as what the website describes, "lighthearted guide to whether the currencies are at their 'correct' level ".
The Big Mac price is the selling price of Big Mac in each country, not a global price. The pricing is adjusted to each country's purchasing power. I'm not an economist and I got a C- for my Economics in Uni, so I won't try to explain in detail about this. To be safe, you can read a detailed information about purchasing power parity here.
Sad isn't it, that Indonesians have to work close to one working day just to earn one meagre Big Mac for a meal. It's even sadder for people in Sierra Leone. They have to work 24-hrs a day to get a Big Mac in 5.7 days. And there isn't even a McDonald outlet in Sierra Leone. The nearest one is in Marrakesh, 2.6km away.
On the other hand, Australia ranks #1 by having to work only roughly 18 minutes per day to eat that one Big Mac, followed by New Zealand at 24 minutes per day.
At one hemisphere people can waste their money to almost 100 Big Macs a day, and at the other end people need to work their a** off just to be able to feed on one Big Mac per week.
The world indeed isn't a fair place.
Sources:
The Economist
Wikipedia
Yahoo! Finance
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