Thursday March 28th, 2024
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Meat-anomics: How Many Hours of Work Does It Take to Buy a KG of Meat in Egypt?

This American company measured minimum wage in 52 countries and figured out the number of hours a KG of meat is worth in each country.

Staff Writer

In 23 hours, you could probably take a drive around the entirety of the ring road at rush hour, find a parking space in Zamalek, take a nap, stand in line at Mogam3 El Tahrir to get your papers stamped, take your car from Zamalek and find a parking spot in Mohandseen, take another nap with time to spare. You could also work at your minimum wage job in Indonesia so you could afford 1 kilogram of meat. Meat is expensive all over the world and people making minimum wage have to work long hours to afford it, but how long is long hours in different countries all over the world?

It takes a bit of research to find out how different countries measure up against each other in terms of how the prices of meat compare to the minimum wage average and what that translates into in terms of working hours, as well as comparing countries to each other. How much time and effort does it take for the average Joe to get their meat? For a Brazilian making minimum wage, we found out, to buy a steak dinner it's apparently 5 hours and 30 minutes.

A company called Caterwings looked at meat prices from 52 countries and crunched the numbers to find out how many hours someone from each country would have to work to afford one kilogram of beef based on that country's minimum wage.

The most interesting part about this is people making minimum wage in the more expensive countries can afford meat quicker than people making minimum wage in cheaper countries can. In Denmark, Sweden, and Australia, countries where meat is actually very expensive, people making minimum wage need to put in less than 2 hours’ worth of work to afford their beef. But in India, Vietnam, and Russia, countries where meat is comparatively cheap to worldwide standards, people making minimum wage need to put in at least 20 hours to afford one kilogram of beef.

There were some Arab countries on the list. The UAE came in at third place in number of hours it takes for a person on minimum wage to afford 1 kilogram of beef. Egypt followed close behind in fifth place, Saudi Arabia in ninth place and Qatar in nineteenth place. In Egypt, while the actual price of meat was considerably cheap in dollars (fourth cheapest to be exact), for someone making minimum wage it takes 20.10 hours for them to afford 1 kilogram of beef.

Check out the full list in all its detailed gory glory here.

Photo: Furibond/Flickr.