Prices in United States 🇺🇸
What 7 everyday items cost in United States, shown in US dollars, in USD, and as roughly how long someone earning the average local wage works to buy one.
The United States is the reference point for the Big Mac Index, so its burger price is the baseline every other country is measured against. American fuel is cheap by rich-country standards — federal and state fuel taxes are a fraction of European levels — while its food prices sit mid-range.
What things cost
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $6.12 | 6.12 USD | 15 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $1.99 | 1.99 USD | 5 min |
| Cappuccino | $5.45 | 5.45 USD | 13 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $1.06 | 1.06 USD | 3 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $4.33 | 4.33 USD | 10 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $5.26 | 5.26 USD | 13 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $1.01 | 1.01 USD | 2 min |
Local-currency figures are converted from US dollars at recent exchange rates, except the Big Mac, which is published in local currency by The Economist and converted the other way. Work time divides the dollar price by an estimated average hourly wage — the roughest number on this page. See methodology.
How United States compares
Relative to the rest of the game, United States is most expensive for apples, where it ranks 2nd out of 32 countries at $5.26 — against a global median of $2.84.
It is relatively cheapest for milk at $1.06, which is 29th of 32 — only 3 countries in the game are cheaper.
Measured against local earnings rather than dollars, the item that takes the longest to afford here is big mac, at roughly 15 minutes of the average wage. Dollar prices and work-time prices often rank countries very differently — that gap is usually the more interesting number.
Play a puzzle
United States comes up in the daily puzzle roughly once every 33 days, paired with a different item each time. Play today's puzzle or browse the archive of past rounds.