Cities, Prices, Paychecks: How Long You Have to Work to Buy a Big Mac Around the World
(Photo by Cate Gillon, Getty Images)
In New York City, it takes an average of 11 minutes of work to afford a Big Mac. That’s less time than it takes to get one (well, seems like).
In Prague, though, you’ll have to work 30 minutes to afford that burger. In Beijing, it’s 42 minutes, and in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, you’ll work 173 minutes or almost three hours—turning the classic fast food fare into something of a delicacy.
And if you’ve ever felt like the price of an iPhone isn’t worth it, that too may depend on where you live.
In Chicago, you have to work 28.4 hours or roughly 3.5 eight-hour days to afford a 16GB iPhone 6. Spread that out over two years of use—if you get that much out of it—and that’s like working for it about 2 minutes and 20 seconds each day.
In Tokyo or Vienna, it’s a whole workweek. And in Cairo, you’ll need to work a whopping 44 eight-hour days to afford the same iPhone—in other words, 30 minutes each day for two years.
At least that’s the case in Nairobi. (Photos via Getty)
It paints a pretty different picture of what that phone is worth.
The amount of labor required to buy something speaks to both purchasing power and the cost of these ubiquitous items locally, according to UBS Wealth Management’s most recent Prices and Earnings Report, which looks at the cost of living in major cities internationally as well as how much residents earn.
Generally speaking, buying is things easiest for the Swiss. In Zurich, it takes 11 minutes of work—not much longer than you probably spend grabbing coffee from the break room—to afford a Big Mac, and about half a week to get an iPhone. Geneva is similar.
Places where your hour’s labor doesn’t take you as far: Nairobi; the Ukrainian capital, Kiev; the Indian cities of Mumbai and New Delhi; the Phillippines’ capital, Manila; Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta ;and Cairo.
These cities rank on the bottom of overall purchasing power and wage levels, according to the same report.
As far as North America goes, the report tracked four U.S. cities—Chicago, L.A., New York and Miami—as well as Canadian cities Toronto and Montreal and the Mexican capital, Mexico City.
Big Macs cost 11 minutes across the U.S. and just a few minutes more in Montreal and Toronto, but cost an hour and change in Mexico City. The iPhone requires less work for New Yorkers by a few hours compared with workers in other U.S. cities, and there’s a bit more labor that goes into getting one in Canada: It takes roughly 35 hours—or almost a full work week—to afford one in Montreal or Toronto.
In Mexico City, it takes five and a half weeks of work for that iPhone 6.
