How do you measure poverty? Probably because they have to grab a Big Mac in between filing stories, Reuters reporters have come up with a new metric on poverty. Interesting to know that Indonesia is behind only South Africa and Egypt in this reckoning. Wonder what Tom Friedman would make of this:
Dec 14 (Reuters) – The following table gives a rough estimate of the earning power of low-income workers in 13 countries around the world by calculating the time it would take for a starting worker at a McDonald’s restaurant to earn enough money to buy a Big Mac hamburger.
Based on an unscientific survey by Reuters reporters, low-income workers in Australia have the highest earning power of the 13 countries, earning enough to buy a Big Mac every 16 minutes.
The lowest earning power is in less-developed countries, where it takes up to 5 hours and 15 minutes to earn the price of a Big Mac.
In the United States, it takes about 30 minutes.
The comparison is an extension of the Big Mac index ( http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/ ), which is used by “The Economist” newspaper to compare international exchange rates.
Australia 16 mins
Japan 22 mins
Britain 22 mins
France 25 mins
United States 30 mins
Chile 43 mins
Russia 53 mins
Argentina 1 hr 40 mins
Mexico 2 hrs 33 mins
Brazil 2 hrs 56 mins
Indonesia 3 hrs 3 mins
South Africa 4 hrs 52 mins
Egypt 5 hrs 15 mins
Thanks to the Knep for the info.
Unspun 
You guys are giving the Reuters reporters too much credit. They didn’t came up with the idea of the alternative Big Mac index. Some researchers at the financial giant UBS did. We disccussed this earlier this year at the Cafe when the Big Mac index was having its 20th birthday.
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great put up, very informative. I wonder why the opposite experts of this
sector do not realize this. You should proceed your writing.
I’m sure, you’ve a huge readers’ base already!
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