Methodology & Data

The Big Mac is nearly identical worldwide and priced in local currency, so it is a fun, intuitive yardstick for purchasing power — popularised by The Economist's Big Mac Index.

Our main metric divides the local minimum wage by the local Big Mac price. Both are in the same currency, so the ratio needs no exchange rate and no PPP adjustment — that makes the ranking hard to dispute.

When a country only publishes a monthly minimum, we convert it to hourly using its statutory weekly hours × 4.33 weeks, and we label that assumption on the country page.

Some countries (e.g. the Nordics, Italy) set pay through collective bargaining. We mark them clearly; where a canton or sector rate is the relevant reference we show it with a footnote.

No. This is a playful purchasing-power comparison, not an economic, investment, or legal indicator.

It is inspired by The Economist’s Big Mac Index, which compares Big Mac prices across countries to gauge currency value. We flip it: instead of comparing prices, we measure how many Big Macs an hour of local minimum wage buys — a purchasing-power view of wages.