How Long Does It Take To Earn A Big Mac?

Just as more fast-food workers are planning to strike later this week, strategist firm ConvergEx Group has compiled data to see how long it takes workers to earn enough for a Big Mac on their minimum wage. In America? It takes 34 minutes. In India? It takes 347 minutes, almost six hours.

This variation on the Big Mac Index, which compares countries' currencies by looking at the average price of a Big Mac, instead sees how long people have to work at minimum wage to afford a Big Mac in their country.

"We wanted to see where the U.S. minimum wage ranked on an international scale, so we took a fairly well-known indicator — the Big Mac Index — and compared burger prices to minimum wages in different countries," the ConvergEx team told Business Insider. "It's near impossible to gauge minimum wages apples-to-apples, of course, so we took a different route for comparison: how many hours does it take to earn a Big Mac at minimum wage?" Not only does this compare minimum wages across the world, but also the prices of a Big Mac.

The results: Australian fast-food workers only have to work 18 minutes to be able to afford a Big Mac. In France, workers only need 22 minutes to buy the product they sell. There's a jump in Japan, where workers have to work 31 minutes, and Greece, where it would take workers 53 minutes. But the biggest jump from there includes Brazil (172 minutes), China (183 minutes), and India (347 minutes). According to the Economist, the price of a Big Mac in India is $1.50.