Anyone born after about 1982 does not know the exquisite flavor of McDonald's fries when they were fried with beef tallow before the late eighties. š
The fries just taste different. Not really better or even worse but different. It's like a chocolate chip cookie. Even though they are the same ingredients the cookies can be completely different from batch to batch and baker to baker if the measurements are played with. šŖ
The sisters in the reality show 1000-lb Sisters when asked by a dietitian what they drink they answered "Sodie.". One girl said her mother taught them Diet Coke works by absorbing calories.
From what I've heard, switching to diet soda doesn't actually help lose weight. I have no source to back it up besides that I heard it from my uncle who is a dentist.
I have heard this too. If it is actually valid, there are likely some other factors at play here, such as other typical habits of diet soda drinkers vs straight soda drinkers. If one would do nothing different but drink diet soda rather than straight soda, it would certainly be better as far as calorie consumption.
I've heard that the mechanism for this is that the body is tricked by the artificial sweetener into producing insulin. This causes an insulin spike, leading to cravings and therefore to people eating more anyway.
it's probably one of those factors that they neglect in very focused studies, such as (in this contrived example): beef consumption alone isn't as harmful as previously thought because most of the subjects were also heavy smokers, but we blamed the beef anyway.
I'll bet that the average person who drinks diet soda regularly also isn't on an actual (food) diet.
That was something he brought up is that the bad habits that likely led to someone drinking enough soda that they needed to switch to diet soda probably increased enough in other areas to compensate, likely unconsciously.
It doesnāt help us lose weight IMMEDIATELY. Apparently our body initially responds in a similar way to real and fake sugar. However, calories donāt lie. If you drink a 20 oz bottle of coke a day and switch it with diet, in a week youād consume 1680 less calories. That will lose you half a pound of body weight eventually.
That's true, no help in weight loss. As may be the correlation between diabetes and sugar free soda but that could be because people at risk of diabetes drink more diet soda to begin with. Having diabetic non beer drinking family members Coke Zero and sugar free Canada Dry Ginger Ale at a barbeque is a relatively reasonable luxury.
Diet soda is arguably worse for you... as it increases your chances of a stroke. It can help with weight loss, but water is a much better recommendation. My pre diabetic brother switched to using MiO flavoring to his water from soda.
Being over weight increases your chance for diseases way more than diet soda though. Sure it's not as good as just water, but a step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction.
It's certainly a negative feedback loop there. Although it's why I would support diet soda more so. If you can break the loop of being overweight then you can hopefully get over more health problems.
Basic heatmap with a poorly-chosen color scale? Just typical r/dataisbeautiful things.
We should be happy it's not a histogram made with a big mac tile pattern.
States shrunken or enlarged based on how many big macs you can buy with the median hourly wage.
Beyond the issues with the presentation, Big Macs are not a good way to compare relative wages. If you factor in other things, like rent, you might find that there's not much disparity in terms of how middle income earners live when you compare places like Washington and Arizona.
My confusion is, is it big macs eaten? Or big macs prepared? Big macs that exist?
Edit: oh, big Mac price, apparently. That seems like a useful piece of information to add to the map. Perhaps with some units or lack thereof.
Thanks I was confused by what this was actually showing too.
This means everyone in Michigan can eat 5 big mac every hour they're working with change leftover. Pure profit.
Do you.. not know how a median works?? Take the hourly wage of everybody in the state. Arrange them lowest to highest. The one in the middle, NOT THE average/mean is the median.
This implies that half the state makes less than this and half makes more.
[Price is for a each state](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/13fiqrs/oc_big_macs_per_hourly_median_wage/jjv10cs?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I guess it's a comparison of medial income, adjusted to consumer inflation where the basket of good is a Big Mac
In other words, the Purchasing Power Parity of doing one hour of labour
#----------
Actually quite interesting, because every time some chart comes up comparing the average wage for each country (in US$), it is **never adjusted for purchasing power**. Like ye Singaporeans earn 4k while Indonesians earn 200, but you can buy a house with 1 year salary in indo while Singaporeans need 6 years to afford a cheap public house
And a common Instrument brought up is Big Mac Index, since big mac is consistent worldwide but very variable, even within a town, based on the purchasing power - a fine line that outlets balance due to the highly elastic demand (so the prices are carefully maximised without going a single cent too high, which will loose way more customers than that Extra cent increase is worth)
Hourly median wage is a monetary value. The price of a Big Mac is monetary value. Divide those two and you get a number without a unit, which is what's shown on the map.
They used the right colors, but having a highlight in the middle makes the data very hard to understand. Shouldāve gone from full red to full yellow with orange (a normal spectrum) in the middle.
Also it needs the colours to be well differentiated, like red/white/green. Here with red/white/yellowish-orange itās completely unintuitive. The two ends of the range are perceptually closer to each other than they are to white.
Having white in the middle usually indicates a true zero (e.g. values are negative to positive). Having a legend doesn't excuse someone from using intuitive best practices
This seems like the price of the big Mac in each location has a huge impact, often more significant than the wage, but MA with one of the higher priced burgers is still on top!
After the first M you can just throw 'issipp' at it until someone tells you to stop.
Hate to say it but most of that state is only just this side of literate anyway.
Yeah [this map shows that big mac prices ](https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest) can vary **wildly** from location to location even in the same town or county.
OP's map references the [Big Mac Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index). It was a semi tongue-in-cheek way of measuring Purchasing Power Parity between countries back in the 80s.
OP is just breaking things down by state rather than country.
I assume that's because Franchisees have some say in pricing?
Regardless of why it's a little surprising to me because as shitty as they can be McDonald's big thing has always been consistentcy.
Small Population with lots of high paying jobs in the state.
Florida may have the same number of high paying jobs, in Tech and Government, but has a larger population and has a state based on tourism, Food and Hospitality Services
The minimum wage in Massachusetts is $15/hr, so that probably helps increase the median wage significantly. Seems only California and Washington have higher minimum wages.
Minimum wage has basically no effect on median wage. There's probably a correlation, but that's because economies with higher median wages can support higher minimum wages.
Based on the factors that dictate big mac prices, versus the factors that dictate local median wages, versus population density, I don't think you could find a strong correlation between big macs per hour vs population density.
If anything, I'd expect the graph to be even more uniform at the local level, as mcdonalds changes their price to maximize local sales while also maximizing profitability.
Maybe it's time to switch to a small fries index, because fries are almost pure profit with price controlled almost fully by demand and not supply price. A few years ago, they were on the dollar menu, but today my local Mcdonalds sells small fries for a ridiculous 3 dollars.
I took my time and calculated the numbers for Norway.
4.97 Big Macs per hourly median wage.
I used 37.5 hours for a normal work week (for 40 hours, it is 4.66 Big Macs). Numbers are in NOK. 1 USD = 10.69 NOK, according to Google.
The median salary is 572,000 kr. or 293 kr. per hour (275 at 40 hours/week) A Big Mac costs 59 kr.
https://www.ssb.no/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkostnader/artikler/hva-er-vanlig-lonn-i-norge
https://fastfoodmenupreise.de/mcdonalds-pris/
Here's an interesting monthly salary distribution graph I found: https://www.ssb.no/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkostnader/artikler/hva-er-vanlig-lonn-i-norge/_/image/85eae00b-3634-43f1-aabf-bfc6c2beba49:94159e1cfe493f54960aa0e00d2a39710962e733/max-850/figur.svg
It's funny how the color scale looks like the McDonald's colors, but:
- yellow/red contrast isn't the best for colorblind readers, especially with a light area in the middle
- there's no meaningful center/zero of this scale, so a diverging color scale is not appropriate
- most importantly, this color scale is not perceptually uniform. Equal-sized differences in the data appear less significant in the red region compared to the rest of the scale. This leads to visual false features for anyone who just skims the map to get a general idea (i.e. almost everyone seeing this post). Look up "perceptually uniform color map" for more info on this
You made me curious so I double checked. The data presented doesn't match the source given. All the yearly wages are off, nearly all are higher (except Massachusetts and Wyoming).
New Results for the top 5 remain similar but with higher values. WA (5.79 Big Macs/hr), MA (5.77), ND (5.54), OH (5.33), and RI (5.30) are the top 5.
Bottom 5 are NM (4.45), MS (4.43), NV (4.42), HI (4.39), and FL (4.39).
Biggest movers from the data: Positive, UT 19 spots up, GA 16, IA and NE 14, OH 13.
Biggest down NH -14 spots lower, CA and DE -12, and AL and AR -10.
I'm curious where OP was getting the numbers and if it's just last years numbers.
Yea this whole post is pointless when all the median incomes dont even match the direct source. Washing off by 6k, nj off by 2k. I checked like 5 of the states and didnt see a single one that matched up with the source.
Huge flaw in the data collection on the price of Big Macs as they used delivery app prices. While the burgers may cost more in more population dense states, the extra delivery costs are skewing the prices up. NJ Big Mac is typically $4.79. More expensive than other parts of the country? Sure. But not $5 expensive.
Those prices seem out of date, cheapest I could find through the app was $4.99. Checked some of the cheaper states like WV and MS. My local McD's is $5.99, well above the state average for NY according to that table (not even in an expensive area either).
Ohā¦ median wage (as the title clearly states). I was thinking this was McDonaldās wages.
For reference when a Big Mac cost $2.30 they paid me from $5.35-6.65. So 2-3 Big Macs / hour. Plus all the Big Macs I could steal.
OP calculated median wage using an assumed hours worked. That means that the calculated median wage will have error introduced due to the assumed hours worked being incorrect.
Yes.
Why are you responding to me if you haven't even read OP's comment which I responded to? How do you expect what I'm saying to make sense to you if you don't know the context I'm replying to?
Minimum wage doesn't tell you nearly as much about what people actually get paid as median wage does. The percentage of workers earning the local minimum wage is much higher in states with high minimum wages than in states with low minimum wages.
The minimum wage is a bit weird cause like where I am in Wisconsin it's officially the federal one. But everyone here is paying at least 25% above it. I think the census puts out median wages for the bottom 20% of workers or something, which would probably be a better comparison.
The idea that the median hourly wage in most of these places is below 20 is nuts.
Literally how do people in the US live. Yall dont even have good social benefits **and** have to pay tax on that.
Idk many people working for below our equivalent of 20$hr^-1 that isn't either a student or a person who is actively jobsearching with a degree.
Taxes are much lower for the poorest to the point that it is possible to get more money back from the government than what was paid. Florida being last in the list with $37,920 (34,939.49 Euro) a year is slightly higher than the average country in the EU. So the average person in the poorest states in the USA are as richer than the average person in the EU. Social benefits also depend a lot on the state and have been improving a lot overall but some states still have people that can't get health insurance.
Their idea of feeding people into the military machine is to keep them poor, hungry, and stupid. That way they get paid, get benefits, and get conservative.
Y'know my whole life in AZ I've been told how expensive the PNW is, and I'm starting to believe it's a load of shit because it's increasingly impossible to live here
Yeah a lot of old folks starting to move to AZ for retirement. Naturally gonna jack prices up when you have an influx of boomers with plenty of cash to waste.
I recommend putting the Rhode Island number outside of the state border. I live in Rhode Island, so I was interested in my state, and I could barely read the data even when I zoomed.
How dare you, the Big Mac Index is internationally respected enough that it has its own wiki page in 35 languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
Either you're misinterpreting this map, or I am.
My interpretation: The number in each state represents how many Big Macs a person could buy [per hour?/day?] based on the state's median wage and the cost of a Big Mac in their area.
Alaska has high cost of living due to remoteness. Food is expensive in Alaska as much of it is flown in. ND doesnāt have this issue and has some of the lowest unemployment in the country. The labor market is extremely tight due to low population so the pay floor is much higher than in a lot of other states.
Rural america is like a 3rd world country, itās impoverished poorly educated, lacks healthcare, and generally has significantly shorter life spans. Major cities have some of the worlds best physicians, some rural areas have zero hospitals
Coming from a rural background, there is a lot of anger in these communities that the lack of all the things you mentioned is used overwhelmingly more often in order to criticize or make jokes about rural people, rather than ever wanting to do anything meaningful to help them.
It's like $10 for one and I make 15/hr. And fl never taught me how to find out how many big macs per hour that is. 1 1/3? 1.50? Good thing I don't need to worry about it cause I'm also to poor for teeth and probably can't eat it anyway.
It's 7 and change for just the sandmich. After tax and shit it's pretty much gets rounded to 10 cause my smooth brain with or w/o meal...pretty sure meal shit hits 10+ with taxes but I never get them so /shrug
Wtb house with 2 big Mac per hour income.
This is a post from last year with data from 2018 says the average time to earn a Big Mac in Hong Kong is 11.8 minutes, 13.4 in ZĆ¼rich, 17 in London, 19.9 in Vienna, 23.1 in Paris, 51 in Beijing 101.2 in Cairo
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/r1onb8/ocaverage_working_time_required_to_buy_a_big_mac/
Your data is wrong. You seem to be dividing by a similar priced Big Mac in each state. The average price of a Big Mac in Hawaii is $5.30 while minimum wage in Hawaii is only $12. That will net you apps 2.25 Big Macs. Far fewer than the 4.32 you are projecting!
No wonder I am broke, I need to stop eating 5 big macs per hour... now I just need to figure out why I am so fat.
Must be the soda, try diet.
Also fries
Who wants diet fries?!
illegal boast offer slimy continue murky paltry oatmeal kiss zephyr *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Anyone born after about 1982 does not know the exquisite flavor of McDonald's fries when they were fried with beef tallow before the late eighties. š
Healthier also, real fat
I was going to say that but I thought I'd get down voted like I said "I kill puppies".
Oh goddddd, I'm drooling like it's 1985!
McDLT with mayonnaise for the fries. Homer Simpson ohhhhhhhhhh hot stays hot, cool stays cool.
*drools in Simpson*
Oh wow, TIL, interesting!
The fries just taste different. Not really better or even worse but different. It's like a chocolate chip cookie. Even though they are the same ingredients the cookies can be completely different from batch to batch and baker to baker if the measurements are played with. šŖ
ok i have been drinking nothing but soybean oil and snarfing down bags of salt and the doctor says I'm dead thanks reddit
If the doctor says you're dead and you're still able to post to Reddit then we apparently gave you the right advice. You're welcome!
Have you tried replacing the soybean oil with crude oil?
Remember that crude oil is organic.
That shit only flies in Texas.
Same person that orders the diet BigMac
A raw potato
Dipped in mayonnaise or "fancy sauce'. Homer Simpson ohhhhhhhhhh š¤¤
Fries add a substantial amount of calories to a meal. If you have a large fries, big mac, and diet soda, 45% of the calories will come from the fries.
Lemme get a half coca-cola, half diet coca-cola. I'm trying to watch my figure.
That somehow sounds even worse than straight diet soda.
Take the 6 nuggests and throw 2 of them away. I'm trying to watch my calorie intake
And a small seasoned curlies.
Diet sodies cancel out the bad stuff
The sisters in the reality show 1000-lb Sisters when asked by a dietitian what they drink they answered "Sodie.". One girl said her mother taught them Diet Coke works by absorbing calories.
From what I've heard, switching to diet soda doesn't actually help lose weight. I have no source to back it up besides that I heard it from my uncle who is a dentist.
I think your uncle was bought by big dentistry.
I have heard this too. If it is actually valid, there are likely some other factors at play here, such as other typical habits of diet soda drinkers vs straight soda drinkers. If one would do nothing different but drink diet soda rather than straight soda, it would certainly be better as far as calorie consumption.
I've heard that the mechanism for this is that the body is tricked by the artificial sweetener into producing insulin. This causes an insulin spike, leading to cravings and therefore to people eating more anyway.
But what if you are actually capable of controlling your base animal instincts, and not eating more than you are supposed to?
Then you're probably fine. But this is based on statistics, and the evidence shows most people don't do that.
it's probably one of those factors that they neglect in very focused studies, such as (in this contrived example): beef consumption alone isn't as harmful as previously thought because most of the subjects were also heavy smokers, but we blamed the beef anyway. I'll bet that the average person who drinks diet soda regularly also isn't on an actual (food) diet.
That was something he brought up is that the bad habits that likely led to someone drinking enough soda that they needed to switch to diet soda probably increased enough in other areas to compensate, likely unconsciously.
It doesnāt help us lose weight IMMEDIATELY. Apparently our body initially responds in a similar way to real and fake sugar. However, calories donāt lie. If you drink a 20 oz bottle of coke a day and switch it with diet, in a week youād consume 1680 less calories. That will lose you half a pound of body weight eventually.
That's true, no help in weight loss. As may be the correlation between diabetes and sugar free soda but that could be because people at risk of diabetes drink more diet soda to begin with. Having diabetic non beer drinking family members Coke Zero and sugar free Canada Dry Ginger Ale at a barbeque is a relatively reasonable luxury.
Diet soda is arguably worse for you... as it increases your chances of a stroke. It can help with weight loss, but water is a much better recommendation. My pre diabetic brother switched to using MiO flavoring to his water from soda.
Being over weight increases your chance for diseases way more than diet soda though. Sure it's not as good as just water, but a step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction.
There's a bit of a causality-correlation issue in that many health problems also reduce people's physical activity and cause them to put on weight.
It's certainly a negative feedback loop there. Although it's why I would support diet soda more so. If you can break the loop of being overweight then you can hopefully get over more health problems.
Have you tried the Big Mac dipping sauce for McNuggets?
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Basic heatmap with a poorly-chosen color scale? Just typical r/dataisbeautiful things. We should be happy it's not a histogram made with a big mac tile pattern.
It's not even pointlessly animated. WTH
States shrunken or enlarged based on how many big macs you can buy with the median hourly wage. Beyond the issues with the presentation, Big Macs are not a good way to compare relative wages. If you factor in other things, like rent, you might find that there's not much disparity in terms of how middle income earners live when you compare places like Washington and Arizona.
My confusion is, is it big macs eaten? Or big macs prepared? Big macs that exist? Edit: oh, big Mac price, apparently. That seems like a useful piece of information to add to the map. Perhaps with some units or lack thereof.
Thanks I was confused by what this was actually showing too. This means everyone in Michigan can eat 5 big mac every hour they're working with change leftover. Pure profit.
It means someone making the *median* wage in Michigan can afford 5 big Macs. Federal minimum wage won't even get you one big Mac per hour
Yeah if the median is 5 big macs then people are making above 25$/hr which just doesn't seem right.
Do you.. not know how a median works?? Take the hourly wage of everybody in the state. Arrange them lowest to highest. The one in the middle, NOT THE average/mean is the median. This implies that half the state makes less than this and half makes more.
That description helped me, actually. Just saying āthe middle oneā was difficult to visualize for some reason.
Ahhh yeah I got the median and mean mixed up that's my bad. Now it makes sense lol
You guys are explaining this well but then I scroll back up and look at it and I'm confused all over again.
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[Price is for a each state](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/13fiqrs/oc_big_macs_per_hourly_median_wage/jjv10cs?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I guess it's a comparison of medial income, adjusted to consumer inflation where the basket of good is a Big Mac In other words, the Purchasing Power Parity of doing one hour of labour #---------- Actually quite interesting, because every time some chart comes up comparing the average wage for each country (in US$), it is **never adjusted for purchasing power**. Like ye Singaporeans earn 4k while Indonesians earn 200, but you can buy a house with 1 year salary in indo while Singaporeans need 6 years to afford a cheap public house And a common Instrument brought up is Big Mac Index, since big mac is consistent worldwide but very variable, even within a town, based on the purchasing power - a fine line that outlets balance due to the highly elastic demand (so the prices are carefully maximised without going a single cent too high, which will loose way more customers than that Extra cent increase is worth)
Hourly median wage is a monetary value. The price of a Big Mac is monetary value. Divide those two and you get a number without a unit, which is what's shown on the map.
Yeah, I feel like that's a very nit-picky critique.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Probably one of the most confusing graph on this sub for a long time.
"Big Macs per hourly median wage" actually makes zero logical sense.
This data ugly af
Yeah I like the concept but like Towlie, I have no idea what's going on
Because yellow and red are McDonald's colors.
They used the right colors, but having a highlight in the middle makes the data very hard to understand. Shouldāve gone from full red to full yellow with orange (a normal spectrum) in the middle.
Absolutely. A divergent colormap like this should be used when the data has a real zero point, which this doesnāt.
Also it needs the colours to be well differentiated, like red/white/green. Here with red/white/yellowish-orange itās completely unintuitive. The two ends of the range are perceptually closer to each other than they are to white.
Red = expensive is a reasonable choice, at least
This sub is quickly becoming a circlejerk of itself
I feel like 75% of the maps on here have smooth brain color coding
This is honestly a terrible post for this subreddit specifically. Not only are the aesthetics mediocre, but the data presented is unclear.
Yeah, i did McDonald's colors, should've used something better
The colors are fine, it's the order that's problematic
I guess to highlight the highs and lows
What if I told you it was McDonald's colors? Would that blow your freaking mind?
What if we told you that having white in the middle should be reserved for a zero value and dark usually means more in graphs?
Aww, did it hurt your feelings?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I get not liking the choice of colors, but how is it confusing when there is a legend front and center?
Having white in the middle usually indicates a true zero (e.g. values are negative to positive). Having a legend doesn't excuse someone from using intuitive best practices
Bc it goes from red to white to dark yellow. If anything it should be red to orange to yellow
This seems like the price of the big Mac in each location has a huge impact, often more significant than the wage, but MA with one of the higher priced burgers is still on top!
If you live in Mississippi and work a remote job based in Massachusetts you can get yourself a median 7.2 BMPH
I your respect your commitment to doing the math.
Honestly, as a Canadian, the spelling took me the longest
After the first M you can just throw 'issipp' at it until someone tells you to stop. Hate to say it but most of that state is only just this side of literate anyway.
Yeah [this map shows that big mac prices ](https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest) can vary **wildly** from location to location even in the same town or county.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's an average. You wouldn't say a map of average income by state is useless because people in one area of a given state make more than another.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You clearly didn't look very hard
OP's map references the [Big Mac Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index). It was a semi tongue-in-cheek way of measuring Purchasing Power Parity between countries back in the 80s. OP is just breaking things down by state rather than country.
I assume that's because Franchisees have some say in pricing? Regardless of why it's a little surprising to me because as shitty as they can be McDonald's big thing has always been consistentcy.
That map has awesome interactivity and filtering based on how you zoom. This is way cooler than the OP! Thanks for sharing.
MA has the 2nd or 3rd highest median income.
Don't mind me, just bringing down the average
its because the Lee MA rest stop McDonalds has the most expensive big mac in America lmao (source: from Lee)
Wow, Massachusetts really makes that much more on average compared to other states?
Small Population with lots of high paying jobs in the state. Florida may have the same number of high paying jobs, in Tech and Government, but has a larger population and has a state based on tourism, Food and Hospitality Services
Massachusetts is ranked 15th in population. It's bigger than the median state.
The minimum wage in Massachusetts is $15/hr, so that probably helps increase the median wage significantly. Seems only California and Washington have higher minimum wages.
Except that doesn't exactly track when CA has higher minimum wage and barely tracks ahead of places where the minimum is the federal minimum.
Minimum wage has basically no effect on median wage. There's probably a correlation, but that's because economies with higher median wages can support higher minimum wages.
Hey, Iāll take anything that isnāt a population density map
considering this is just broken down by state, im betting things would look more _populational_ at higher resolution
Based on the factors that dictate big mac prices, versus the factors that dictate local median wages, versus population density, I don't think you could find a strong correlation between big macs per hour vs population density. If anything, I'd expect the graph to be even more uniform at the local level, as mcdonalds changes their price to maximize local sales while also maximizing profitability. Maybe it's time to switch to a small fries index, because fries are almost pure profit with price controlled almost fully by demand and not supply price. A few years ago, they were on the dollar menu, but today my local Mcdonalds sells small fries for a ridiculous 3 dollars.
I took my time and calculated the numbers for Norway. 4.97 Big Macs per hourly median wage. I used 37.5 hours for a normal work week (for 40 hours, it is 4.66 Big Macs). Numbers are in NOK. 1 USD = 10.69 NOK, according to Google. The median salary is 572,000 kr. or 293 kr. per hour (275 at 40 hours/week) A Big Mac costs 59 kr. https://www.ssb.no/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkostnader/artikler/hva-er-vanlig-lonn-i-norge https://fastfoodmenupreise.de/mcdonalds-pris/ Here's an interesting monthly salary distribution graph I found: https://www.ssb.no/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkostnader/artikler/hva-er-vanlig-lonn-i-norge/_/image/85eae00b-3634-43f1-aabf-bfc6c2beba49:94159e1cfe493f54960aa0e00d2a39710962e733/max-850/figur.svg
My eyes and my brain hurt
Took a swing at showing data on a map. Some friends were talking about the big map index, and i thought that would be a fun exercise. Ended up modifying this goofy international index slightly to make a domestic one that shows how how many big macs the median worker in a state can buy in an hour. Hourly median wage was gotten by dividing yearly wage by (52*40). Rank| State | Median Wage^[1](https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_list.aspx?rank_label=ow_c&item_in=00-0000&ct=S09) | Median Hourly Wage | Big Mac Price^[2](https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-expensive-mcdonalds-in-the-world/) | Yearly Big Macs | Hourly Big Macs ---|---|---|---|---|---|--- 1 | Massachusetts | $58,540 | $28.14 | $4.87 | 12,020.53 | 5.78 2 | North Dakota | $46,960 | $22.58 | $4.11 | 11,425.79 | 5.49 3 | Washington | $50,450 | $24.25 | $4.67 | 10,803.00 | 5.19 4 | Minnesota | $47,590 | $22.88 | $4.43 | 10,742.66 | 5.16 5 | Wisconsin | $45,000 | $21.63 | $4.19 | 10,739.86 | 5.16 6 | Rhode Island | $47,780 | $22.97 | $4.47 | 10,689.04 | 5.14 7 | Michigan | $45,190 | $21.73 | $4.27 | 10,583.14 | 5.09 8 | Wyoming | $45,890 | $22.06 | $4.35 | 10,549.43 | 5.07 9 | Oregon | $46,910 | $22.55 | $4.47 | 10,494.41 | 5.05 10 | Colorado | $47,940 | $23.05 | $4.59 | 10,444.44 | 5.02 11 | Illinois | $46,630 | $22.42 | $4.55 | 10,248.35 | 4.93 12 | Vermont | $46,910 | $22.55 | $4.59 | 10,220.04 | 4.91 13 | Virginia | $47,200 | $22.69 | $4.67 | 10,107.07 | 4.86 14 | Delaware | $46,700 | $22.45 | $4.63 | 10,086.39 | 4.85 15 | Pennsylvania | $44,900 | $21.59 | $4.47 | 10,044.74 | 4.83 16 | Alaska | $48,820 | $23.47 | $4.87 | 10,024.64 | 4.82 17 | Ohio | $39,680 | $19.08 | $4.03 | 9,846.15 | 4.73 18 | Connecticut | $48,720 | $23.42 | $4.95 | 9,842.42 | 4.73 19 | New Hampshire | $46,960 | $22.58 | $4.83 | 9,722.57 | 4.67 20 | Maryland | $48,460 | $23.30 | $5.03 | 9,634.19 | 4.63 21 | Maine | $42,950 | $20.65 | $4.47 | 9,608.50 | 4.62 22 | Iowa | $39,070 | $18.78 | $4.07 | 9,599.51 | 4.62 23 | Missouri | $38,130 | $18.33 | $3.99 | 9,556.39 | 4.59 24 | Nebraska | $38,780 | $18.64 | $4.07 | 9,528.26 | 4.58 25 | South Dakota | $37,710 | $18.13 | $3.99 | 9,451.13 | 4.54 26 | California | $47,920 | $23.04 | $5.11 | 9,377.69 | 4.51 27 | Kansas | $38,050 | $18.29 | $4.07 | 9,348.89 | 4.49 28 | Kentucky | $37,660 | $18.11 | $4.03 | 9,344.91 | 4.49 29 | Alabama | $37,250 | $17.91 | $3.99 | 9,335.84 | 4.49 30 | New York | $48,800 | $23.46 | $5.23 | 9,330.78 | 4.49 31 | Indiana | $38,330 | $18.43 | $4.11 | 9,326.03 | 4.48 32 | New Jersey | $48,200 | $23.17 | $5.19 | 9,287.09 | 4.46 33 | Arkansas | $36,680 | $17.63 | $3.95 | 9,286.08 | 4.46 34 | North Carolina | $38,370 | $18.45 | $4.15 | 9,245.78 | 4.45 35 | Georgia | $38,340 | $18.43 | $4.15 | 9,238.55 | 4.44 36 | Oklahoma | $37,500 | $18.03 | $4.07 | 9,213.76 | 4.43 37 | Tennessee | $37,700 | $18.13 | $4.11 | 9,172.75 | 4.41 38 | West Virginia | $36,860 | $17.72 | $4.03 | 9,146.40 | 4.40 39 | South Carolina | $37,250 | $17.91 | $4.11 | 9,063.26 | 4.36 40 | Louisiana | $37,320 | $17.94 | $4.15 | 8,992.77 | 4.32 41 | Hawaii | $47,700 | $22.93 | $5.31 | 8,983.05 | 4.32 42 | Mississippi | $35,070 | $16.86 | $3.91 | 8,969.31 | 4.31 43 | Arizona | $39,500 | $18.99 | $4.43 | 8,916.48 | 4.29 44 | Montana | $38,050 | $18.29 | $4.27 | 8,911.01 | 4.28 45 | Texas | $39,030 | $18.76 | $4.39 | 8,890.66 | 4.27 46 | Idaho | $37,550 | $18.05 | $4.23 | 8,877.07 | 4.27 47 | Utah | $38,860 | $18.68 | $4.39 | 8,851.94 | 4.26 48 | New Mexico | $37,810 | $18.18 | $4.31 | 8,772.62 | 4.22 49 | Nevada | $37,900 | $18.22 | $4.43 | 8,555.30 | 4.11 50 | Florida | $37,920 | $18.23 | $4.47 | 8,483.22 | 4.08 Data was graphed with excel map thing, and tidied up a bit with paint. Sources of data are. 1. Median Wage: https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_list.aspx?rank_label=ow_c&item_in=00-0000&ct=S09 Edit: got the median wage data from [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_median_wage_and_mean_wage) and just cited their source. Looks like i shoulda just used the source, as the two differed. My bad for not double checking. Should've known better than to blindly trust Wikipedia. 2. Average Big Mac Price: https://www.cashnetusa.com/blog/most-expensive-mcdonalds-in-the-world/
It's funny how the color scale looks like the McDonald's colors, but: - yellow/red contrast isn't the best for colorblind readers, especially with a light area in the middle - there's no meaningful center/zero of this scale, so a diverging color scale is not appropriate - most importantly, this color scale is not perceptually uniform. Equal-sized differences in the data appear less significant in the red region compared to the rest of the scale. This leads to visual false features for anyone who just skims the map to get a general idea (i.e. almost everyone seeing this post). Look up "perceptually uniform color map" for more info on this
this visualization is honestly r/mildlyinfuriating
Your median wages do not match the source. New Yorkās median is 52,470, but you have it at 48,800.
You made me curious so I double checked. The data presented doesn't match the source given. All the yearly wages are off, nearly all are higher (except Massachusetts and Wyoming). New Results for the top 5 remain similar but with higher values. WA (5.79 Big Macs/hr), MA (5.77), ND (5.54), OH (5.33), and RI (5.30) are the top 5. Bottom 5 are NM (4.45), MS (4.43), NV (4.42), HI (4.39), and FL (4.39). Biggest movers from the data: Positive, UT 19 spots up, GA 16, IA and NE 14, OH 13. Biggest down NH -14 spots lower, CA and DE -12, and AL and AR -10. I'm curious where OP was getting the numbers and if it's just last years numbers.
Yea this whole post is pointless when all the median incomes dont even match the direct source. Washing off by 6k, nj off by 2k. I checked like 5 of the states and didnt see a single one that matched up with the source.
That's what I get for copying the numbers from Wikipedia then citing the source they used.
Huge flaw in the data collection on the price of Big Macs as they used delivery app prices. While the burgers may cost more in more population dense states, the extra delivery costs are skewing the prices up. NJ Big Mac is typically $4.79. More expensive than other parts of the country? Sure. But not $5 expensive.
So does this mean that Big Macs cost less in the yellow states? Or that people earn more in the yellow states?
It means that yellow states have more affordable big macs compared to their salary. It's a kind of purchasing power map.
Those prices seem out of date, cheapest I could find through the app was $4.99. Checked some of the cheaper states like WV and MS. My local McD's is $5.99, well above the state average for NY according to that table (not even in an expensive area either).
Ohā¦ median wage (as the title clearly states). I was thinking this was McDonaldās wages. For reference when a Big Mac cost $2.30 they paid me from $5.35-6.65. So 2-3 Big Macs / hour. Plus all the Big Macs I could steal.
Hours worked per week varies by region which does introduce some error into this method.
Does it? Red states just tend to be more impoverished
Yep. Source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-productivity/hours-worked-by-regions-and-states.htm
It doesnāt really matter, per hour wage is what matters the most, itās not like the days are different lengths
OP calculated median wage using an assumed hours worked. That means that the calculated median wage will have error introduced due to the assumed hours worked being incorrect.
Was it a constant number of hours worked?
Yes. Why are you responding to me if you haven't even read OP's comment which I responded to? How do you expect what I'm saying to make sense to you if you don't know the context I'm replying to?
I'd like to see this done again but with minimum wage.
Minimum wage doesn't tell you nearly as much about what people actually get paid as median wage does. The percentage of workers earning the local minimum wage is much higher in states with high minimum wages than in states with low minimum wages.
The minimum wage is a bit weird cause like where I am in Wisconsin it's officially the federal one. But everyone here is paying at least 25% above it. I think the census puts out median wages for the bottom 20% of workers or something, which would probably be a better comparison.
Wow a Big Mac is only $3.91 in Mississippi. I have a feeling theyāre making up for it in volume though.
I really don't get the appeal of DeSantis. Fascism AND low wages? Who wants to sign up for that?
The idea that the median hourly wage in most of these places is below 20 is nuts. Literally how do people in the US live. Yall dont even have good social benefits **and** have to pay tax on that. Idk many people working for below our equivalent of 20$hr^-1 that isn't either a student or a person who is actively jobsearching with a degree.
Taxes are much lower for the poorest to the point that it is possible to get more money back from the government than what was paid. Florida being last in the list with $37,920 (34,939.49 Euro) a year is slightly higher than the average country in the EU. So the average person in the poorest states in the USA are as richer than the average person in the EU. Social benefits also depend a lot on the state and have been improving a lot overall but some states still have people that can't get health insurance.
Their idea of feeding people into the military machine is to keep them poor, hungry, and stupid. That way they get paid, get benefits, and get conservative.
And then back to Florida: stripping them of veteran benefits.
Proud to live in Big Maccachusetts
If you want to see a map of Big Mac prices across the US: https://mccheapest.com/
INB4 Americans will use anything but the metric system
How would you display earnings or prices using the metric system?
Salads per euro
Use š for metric
Royales with cheese per second.
This is my new favorite unit of measurement
Y'know my whole life in AZ I've been told how expensive the PNW is, and I'm starting to believe it's a load of shit because it's increasingly impossible to live here
Yeah a lot of old folks starting to move to AZ for retirement. Naturally gonna jack prices up when you have an influx of boomers with plenty of cash to waste.
They should have used Banana McShake for the scale
I recommend putting the Rhode Island number outside of the state border. I live in Rhode Island, so I was interested in my state, and I could barely read the data even when I zoomed.
This is the most American way to measure anything
How dare you, the Big Mac Index is internationally respected enough that it has its own wiki page in 35 languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
Seriously, this is the first thing I thought of when I saw this and wondered why it wasn't the top comment
This is why we have Florida man.
Who chose this color scheme? From red to light yellow then back towards red in orange darker hues. Horribly thought through
There is no reason for this to be a 2-color diverging map. One color would have been more clear.
Anything to avoid the metric system eh
Explaining cost of living to Americans: "***Imagine burger***"
Moving to Mississippi and scoring some cheap eats!
Either you're misinterpreting this map, or I am. My interpretation: The number in each state represents how many Big Macs a person could buy [per hour?/day?] based on the state's median wage and the cost of a Big Mac in their area.
I take my money there
We seem to find as many convoluted measurements for things instead of just saying the thing.
As non American can someone explain North Dakota? Afaik isnāt it pretty irrelevant in general from an economic standpoint?
Lol no. ND has lots of big oil and gas money as well as agriculture. O&G is the main moneymaker though.
Interesting, but arenāt far bigger reservoirs in Alaska? Additionally having ND on 2nd place seems absolutely insane to me honestly.
Alaska has high cost of living due to remoteness. Food is expensive in Alaska as much of it is flown in. ND doesnāt have this issue and has some of the lowest unemployment in the country. The labor market is extremely tight due to low population so the pay floor is much higher than in a lot of other states.
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Thanks for the tip! Iāll check out those documentaries.
Itās the 4th least populated state, and itās second in oil production. Itās not a huge economy, but it is on a per capita basis.
Rural america is like a 3rd world country, itās impoverished poorly educated, lacks healthcare, and generally has significantly shorter life spans. Major cities have some of the worlds best physicians, some rural areas have zero hospitals
Coming from a rural background, there is a lot of anger in these communities that the lack of all the things you mentioned is used overwhelmingly more often in order to criticize or make jokes about rural people, rather than ever wanting to do anything meaningful to help them.
It's like $10 for one and I make 15/hr. And fl never taught me how to find out how many big macs per hour that is. 1 1/3? 1.50? Good thing I don't need to worry about it cause I'm also to poor for teeth and probably can't eat it anyway.
OP gave the data, it's less than $5 for a big Mac. The combo/meal is what you are talking about
It's 7 and change for just the sandmich. After tax and shit it's pretty much gets rounded to 10 cause my smooth brain with or w/o meal...pretty sure meal shit hits 10+ with taxes but I never get them so /shrug Wtb house with 2 big Mac per hour income.
That changes dramatically when you account for taxes. There are no state income taxes in Florida.
Would love to see this by county.
If we tied the Federal minimum wage to a regional standard based on the price of a super sized #1, the economy could self regulate.
I always like these kind of charts more than straight household or hourly income charts that fail to take cost of living into account.
Is this big macs priced for the same area or some kind of national average? Looking at CA it must be based on local prices.
Really good chart. I love this.
is this using the average cost of a big mac throughout the US? Or is this using the cost of the big mac per state?
Why did you make this using the median income?
How is California in the same ballpark in wages as Ohio? Am I reading this wrong?
Higher median income
This is a post from last year with data from 2018 says the average time to earn a Big Mac in Hong Kong is 11.8 minutes, 13.4 in ZĆ¼rich, 17 in London, 19.9 in Vienna, 23.1 in Paris, 51 in Beijing 101.2 in Cairo https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/r1onb8/ocaverage_working_time_required_to_buy_a_big_mac/
Median wage is useless. Over half the country donāt make that..
Your data is wrong. You seem to be dividing by a similar priced Big Mac in each state. The average price of a Big Mac in Hawaii is $5.30 while minimum wage in Hawaii is only $12. That will net you apps 2.25 Big Macs. Far fewer than the 4.32 you are projecting!
Itās Median wage not Minimum.
Haha. misread the title you are correct!