Big Mac Time Machine

Methodology & sources

The idea

The Economist's Big Mac Index uses one standardized product to compare purchasing power across countries. This site points the same lens at time: every price is expressed in nominal dollars of its own year, and then re-expressed in 2026 dollars, in Big Macs, and in minutes of work. Dollars are a moving target; a Big Mac is roughly the same thing in 1967 and 2026.

The formulas

  • Today's dollars. price × CPI2026 ÷ CPIyear, using the CPI-U annual average.
  • "Walk into {year} with today's paycheck." Your nominal income ÷ that year's price. Fun, and a bit unfair, because dollars were worth more then.
  • "Someone earning your equivalent salary." Your income deflated by CPI to that year's dollars, ÷ that year's price. This is the real comparison: did the item cost a larger share of a similar paycheck?
  • Minutes to earn. price ÷ hourly wage × 60, pre-tax.
  • Hourly incomes are annualized at 2,080 hours (40 h × 52 weeks).
  • Yearly growth is the compound annual rate between the two years.

Interpolation and the est. badge

Each series is stored as a sparse list of documented anchor years. Years between anchors are linearly interpolated and flagged as estimated, drawn dashed on charts and italic in tables. Years after the last anchor carry it forward. Years before the first anchor have no value: the Big Mac did not exist before 1967.

Rate-type series (postage, federal minimum wage) are recorded as the rate in effect for the majority of days in each year, so a change that took effect in July shows up the following year. Everything else is an annual average of monthly prices.

Big Mac prices from 2000 onward come from The Economist's published dataset. Before that only a handful of documented anchors exist (1967, 1968, 1972, 1978, 1980 and the first Big Mac index in 1986), so 1987-1999 and the 1970s are interpolated and are the least precise part of the index. Pre-1980 grocery anchors come from secondary compilations of BLS bulletins and are approximate. Coca-Cola is an outright estimate and is labelled low confidence.

Caveats

  • All prices are U.S. national averages. A Big Mac in Manhattan and one in Mississippi differ by more than some decades of inflation.
  • Product sizes drift: a "loaf" is priced per pound here to sidestep shrinkflation; Big Mac patties have held at 1.6 oz each.
  • The federal minimum wage is a floor. Since 2014 most workers are covered by higher state or local minimums.
  • The most recent year's CPI is a partial-year average until December data is published, and the Census releases household income with a one-year lag.

Sources

Consumer Price Index

Annual averages. 1913-1979 hand-entered from the BLS historical table; 1980 onward comes from the BLS CPI-U series. The latest year may be a partial-year average until December data is published.

Big Mac 1 sandwich

National average. Values before 2000 are documented anchors, not a continuous survey: 1987-1999 and other gap years are interpolated and flagged. Menu prices vary by 20% or more between regions and franchisees.

Gasoline 1 gallon, regular · BLS APU000074714

U.S. city average, all formulations of regular unleaded. Annual mean of monthly prices.

Milk 1 gallon, whole · BLS APU0000709112

U.S. city average. The per-gallon BLS series begins in 1995; 1980-1994 doubles the half-gallon series, which runs slightly higher per gallon than gallon jugs.

Eggs 1 dozen, grade A large · BLS APU0000708111

Egg prices are volatile: avian-flu outbreaks in 2015, 2022 and 2025 produced sharp spikes that annual averages smooth over.

White Bread 1 lb loaf · BLS APU0000702111

U.S. city average per pound; a standard supermarket loaf is 20-24 oz, so multiply accordingly.

Ground Coffee 1 lb, 100% ground roast · BLS APU0000717311

Supermarket ground coffee, not café drinks.

Ground Beef 1 lb, 100% beef · BLS APU0000703112

The raw material of the Big Mac itself: two all-beef patties.

Movie Ticket 1 admission

Industry average across all showings, including discounted matinees and children's tickets, so an evening adult ticket in a big city runs well above this. NATO did not publish 1968-70, 1972-73 or 2020; those years are interpolated.

Postage Stamp 1 first-class letter (1 oz)

Rate in effect for the majority of days in each year (a rate that changed in July, as in 2022-2025, shows up the following year). Forever stamps, introduced in 2007, are valued at the current rate.

Coca-Cola 12 oz can, grocery

Low-confidence estimate. Soda pricing is dominated by promotions and pack sizes; vending and restaurant prices run 2-4x higher than the per-can grocery figure used here.

Federal Minimum Wage $ per hour

Federal rate for covered non-farm workers, taken as the rate in effect for the majority of days in each year (so the July 2009 increase to $7.25 appears from 2010). Many states set higher minimums, especially after 2014.

Average Hourly Earnings $ per hour · BLS CES0500000008

Production and nonsupervisory workers, about four fifths of private payrolls. Annual average of monthly values.

Median Household Income $ per year

Current (nominal) dollars, one value per year, as currently published (2013 uses the redesigned-questionnaire figure; 2020 is the pandemic nonresponse-adjusted revision). The Census Bureau publishes each year's figure the following September, so the most recent year or two are carried forward.

Who makes this

Big Mac Time Machine is built and operated by Afterwork Studios, LLC, an independent studio. It is a side project, not a commercial data product: the site is free to use and supported by advertising, and every figure is traceable to the sources listed above. Corrections to a price series are welcome — a citation for a better anchor year is the most useful thing you can send.

Contact: [email protected]. Use of the site is governed by the terms of use. Data handling is described in the privacy policy.

Licensing & disclaimers

Data compiled by U.S. federal government agencies (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Bureau, Department of Labor, Energy Information Administration) is in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. In accordance with the BLS Public Data API Terms of Service:

"BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov."

The Big Mac Index dataset (2000–present) is compiled and published by The Economist under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Where both January and July surveys were released in a single calendar year, those figures are averaged into an annual value.

Historical movie ticket averages are sourced from the National Association of Theatre Owners (now Cinema United). Historical commodity and anchor prices from before continuous federal surveys (such as vintage newspaper advertisements and press reports) represent uncopyrightable factual data under U.S. copyright law (Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service).

Trademarks: Big Mac is a registered trademark of McDonald's Corporation. Coca-Cola is a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names referenced on this site belong to their respective owners and are used strictly for nominative, historical, and price comparison purposes. Big Mac Time Machine is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, or any other entity.