

The burger methodology has limitations in its estimates of the PPP. introduced the Billy index where they convert local prices of Ikea's Billy bookshelf into US dollars and compare the prices. However, this theory can be criticised for ignoring shipping costs, which will vary depending on how far the product is delivered from its "single place" of manufacture in China. In 2007, an Australian bank's subsidiary, Commonwealth Securities, adapted the idea behind the Big Mac index to create an " iPod index." The bank's theory is that since the iPod is manufactured at a single place, the value of iPods should be more consistent globally. For example in January 2004, it showed a Tall Latte index with the Big Mac replaced by a cup of Starbucks coffee. The Economist sometimes produces variants on the theme. As of April 2009, the Big Mac is trading in Germany at €2.99, which translates into US$3.96, which would imply that the Euro is slightly trading above the PPP, with the difference being 10.9%. The Eurozone is mixed, as prices differ widely in the EU area.

The working-time based Big Mac index might give a more realistic view of the purchasing power of the average worker, as it takes into account more factors, such as local wages.

UBS Wealth Management Research has expanded the idea of the Big Mac index to include the amount of time that an average worker in a given country must work to earn enough to buy a Big Mac. The index also gave rise to the word burgernomics. In-N-Out's starting wages are $11 an hour.įast food companies' "traditional defense of miserable pay - that most of their employees are young, part time, just working for gas money, really - has grown threadbare," Finnegan writes.The Big Mac index was introduced in The Economist in September 1986 by Pam Woodall as a semi-humorous illustration and has been published by that paper annually since then. There are also domestic fast food chains, such as In-N-Out Burger, that have managed to pay employees more than McDonald's while still selling food at cheap prices, Finnegan points out. On average, the Big Mac costs about $4.80 in the US and $5.15 in Denmark, according to the Economist's Big Mac index, which tracks the price of Big Macs across the world. Thanks to unionization, workers in Denmark also get paid sick leave and overtime pay. "In Denmark, McDonald's workers over the age of eighteen earn more than $20 an hour - they are also unionized - and the price of a Big Mac is only thirty-five cents more than it is in the United States," Finnegan writes.
