About this tool
The Hours of Work per Item calculator answers the question "how long do I work to afford X?" The unit (hours) is universal. The number (median wage) is local. Hours-of-work pricing strips out FX distortion and lets you compare a coffee in San Francisco against a coffee in Bangalore without arguing about exchange rates.
The original Big Mac Index was published by The Economist in 1986 as a tongue-in-cheek measure of purchasing power parity. It asked: if a Big Mac costs $5.69 in the US but only £4.10 in the UK, the pound should be priced near $1.39 to dollar (it isn't, the pound is undervalued). This calculator turns the index inward: rather than comparing currencies, it compares lives. Your hour of life is the most expensive currency you spend.
How the calculator works
- Pick a country and item. The calculator auto-fills the local price (in local currency) and the country's median monthly net salary (after tax).
- Edit the price or wage if you want to use your own salary or a different price (used iPhone vs new, Standard vs Premium Netflix, etc.).
- Hours of work = item price / hourly wage. Hourly wage = (monthly net x 12) / (hours per week x 52).
- Cross-country bar chart renders the same item across 8 countries so you can compare side by side. Your country has a white outline.
The formula
The result has units of hours, not dollars. Hours are universal: a Swiss banker and a Bangalore engineer both have 24 of them per day. That is what makes this calculator more powerful than a simple FX conversion.
Why hours-of-work pricing matters
- It strips out FX noise. An iPhone priced at ₹125,900 sounds different from $1,499 but both are roughly the same in USD terms. Hours of work makes the comparison meaningful: 38 hours in the US, 327 hours in India.
- It exposes hidden inflation. A Big Mac cost 27 minutes of work in 1970 (USA); today it costs about 13 minutes. Hours-of-work pricing shows technology and productivity gains have made many things genuinely cheaper, even when nominal prices rise.
- It informs migration decisions. A salary that buys a Big Mac in 12 minutes in Dubai but 80 minutes in Mumbai matters more than the headline annual number.
- It checks luxury-justification narratives. The "iPhone is expensive but worth it" argument lands differently when you see it costs 8 work weeks of an Indian median earner vs 1 work week of an American median earner.
- It quantifies geographic arbitrage. Same Netflix sub, same Toyota Corolla, same MacBook, vastly different hour-cost. Pairs well with the relocation decision matrix.
5 worked comparisons (2026)
| Item | 🇺🇸 US | 🇬🇧 UK | 🇩🇪 DE | 🇮🇳 IN | 🇦🇪 AE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | 13 min | 17 min | 18 min | 85 min | 19 min |
| Tall latte | 12 min | 16 min | 14 min | 90 min | 25 min |
| iPhone 16 Pro 256 | 38 hr | 59 hr | 68 hr | 327 hr | 63 hr |
| 1L gasoline | 2 min | 5 min | 5 min | 21 min | 3 min |
| Median 1BR rent (mo) | 68 hr | 112 hr | 52 hr | 155 hr | 95 hr |
| Toyota Corolla | 935 hr | 1,420 hr | 1,490 hr | 3,800 hr | 1,180 hr |
| MacBook Air M3 | 42 hr | 63 hr | 71 hr | 312 hr | 62 hr |
| Netflix Standard /mo | 35 min | 45 min | 50 min | 170 min | 55 min |
Computed on median net monthly wages 2024-25, 40 hrs/week. India figures are striking partly because Indian Apple prices include a 25-30% premium over US list while wages are 4-6x lower in USD terms. UAE's high consumer-electronics affordability comes from 0% income tax (every dirham earned is take-home) despite nominal prices being similar to the US.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index was created by The Economist in 1986 to measure purchasing power parity (PPP) across countries using the price of a McDonald's Big Mac, a globally standardised consumer good. The intuition: if a Big Mac costs $5.69 in the US and $4.05 in the UK after FX conversion, the British pound is undervalued by about 29%. This calculator generalises the idea: rather than comparing currencies, it expresses item prices as hours of work for the median earner.
How is hours-of-work-per-item calculated?
Hours of work = item price / hourly wage. Hourly wage = (median monthly net salary * 12) / (hours per week * 52). The result tells you how much of your year you trade away to afford one of the item. A $40 latte at $20/hour takes 2 hours of life. A $1,200 iPhone at the same wage takes 60 hours, roughly a week and a half of full-time work.
Which country has the cheapest iPhone in hours of work?
As of 2026, the cheapest iPhone 16 Pro in hours-of-work terms is the United States (no-state-tax band) at roughly 38-45 hours. The most expensive is India at roughly 250-350 hours, because Apple charges a 25-30% premium over US pricing while the median Indian salary is 4-6x lower in USD terms.
Why does the same Big Mac cost different hours of work in different countries?
Two reasons. First, the local nominal price of a Big Mac varies (it costs $5.69 in the US but only $2.55 in India and $4.05 in the UK). Second, median wages vary even more. A Swiss worker on the median wage earns ~$45/hr after tax; an Indian worker ~$3/hr. So the same hour buys 15x more Big Macs in Zurich than Bangalore.
What does the calculator use for median salary?
Default median monthly net wages are sourced from each country's national statistics agency (BLS for US, ONS for UK, MOSPI for India, StatsCan for Canada, ABS for Australia, MOM for Singapore, FCSA for UAE, DESTATIS for Germany) for full-time workers in 2024-25, refreshed annually. You can edit the wage to your personal income for a personalised time-price.
How accurate are the item prices?
Big Mac prices from The Economist's Big Mac Index (Jan 2026 release). Latte from Numbeo crowd-sourced average. iPhone 16 Pro from Apple country pricing pages. Gasoline from GlobalPetrolPrices.com. Rent and car prices from Numbeo. MacBook from Apple. Flight to NYC from Google Flights cheapest economy round-trip in March 2026. Netflix subscription from Netflix country pricing.
Why not use GDP per capita instead of median wage?
Mean GDP per capita is skewed by top earners (tech and finance billionaires concentrate it). Median wage is what the typical worker actually earns and is closer to lived experience. The original Big Mac Index used FX rates rather than wages; this tool uses wages because it answers a different question: not 'is the currency over or undervalued' but 'how much of your life do you trade for this item'.
How is gasoline measured?
Price per litre (or per US gallon converted to litres) at the average national pump price in March 2026, from GlobalPetrolPrices.com. The US benefits from low federal fuel tax (about $0.18/gallon) plus a strong domestic oil sector; European prices are 2-3x higher due to fuel duty designed to discourage driving.
Why is rent shown in hours instead of years?
Because rent is a monthly recurring expense, the most useful unit is hours per month of work needed to cover one month's rent. In high-cost cities (London, San Francisco, Singapore), this can easily exceed 100 hours, leaving fewer than 75 hours of after-rent earnings per month for everything else.
What if my salary is well above median?
Use the "your salary" override field to personalise the result. A software engineer in Bangalore earning 5x the median will see hours-of-work figures 5x smaller. This is what makes purchasing power parity moot at the individual level: your personal time-price differs hugely from your country's median.
Are my inputs saved?
No. Inputs live in your browser tab only. Closing the tab discards them. Nothing is sent to a server.
Can I use this on my phone?
Yes. The layout is responsive at 480, 720, and 1024 px breakpoints. Tested on iOS Safari and Android Chrome.