Numbeo, a crowd-sourced database of the price of goods around the world, maintains a comprehensive list of the average price of a domestic draft beer in different countries. And the International Labor Organization (ILO) maintains a vast library of minimum monthly wage data. So we combined the two—into a beer indicator, of sorts.
By dividing the average price a local has to pay to get a beer by the hourly minimum wage (assuming a 40-hour work week) a person makes in each country, we were able to approximate how long it takes someone making the minimum wage to earn enough to buy a brew at a local bar.
Given that throwing back a cold one after work is one of the more basic human needs, I can't think of a better way to measure the real minimum wage. The US stacks up pretty well here, with about 25 minutes of work at minimum wage paying for a beer, tying with Canada, Japan, Belgium and Germany -- though given the quality of domestic beer in Germany and Belgium versus the US they may have a better deal going there. The UK and Ireland trail at 30min while France edges up to 35 minutes.
2 comments:
They "may" have a better deal going there?
@ bearing
Well if you live in Texas like myself...
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