Pricele #114: Big Mac in United States 🇺🇸

The Big Mac is the most-quoted price in economics. The Economist started publishing its Big Mac Index in 1986 as a light-hearted way to test purchasing-power parity, the theory that a currency should buy the same basket of goods anywhere. Because the burger is close to identical everywhere it is sold, the gap between what it costs in two countries is a rough read on whether a currency is over- or undervalued.

Of the 52 countries priced for big mac, United States ranks #21 from the top at $6.12, 1.1× the median of $5.54.

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, since federal and state fuel taxes are a fraction of European levels, while its food prices sit mid-range. It is also the only country here with no VAT at all: sales tax is set by states and municipalities, most states exempt groceries entirely, and the rate genuinely differs between two towns an hour apart. Every other column in this table has a national tax rate that can be quoted; the American one does not, and the figure here is a national average papering over real internal variation.

See the full table for big mac in every country or everything priced in United States.