Opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times in May 2020, for instance, that “my spot pricing suggested that (a Big Mac might) cost about 27 cents more on average in Denmark than in the United States.” Ida Auken, a Danish politician, wrote in The Washington Post that “a burger in Denmark costs roughly a dollar more that it costs in the United States.” While our quick check of menu prices and the Economist’s Big Mac Index suggest that this burger costs, on average, less in Denmark than in the United States, other informal studies have come to different conclusions. According to the Big Mac Index, “a Big Mac costs DKr30.00 in Denmark and US$5.66 in the United States.” When adjusted for GDP, the Economist found that “a Big Mac costs 13% less in Denmark (US$4.90) than in the United States (US$5.66) at market exchange rates.” This single example lines up with the Big Mac Index, an interactive tool from the Economist that compares Big Mac prices around the world. At a McDonald’s location in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Big Mac costs $4.82. At a McDonald’s location in Copenhagen, for example, this burger cost 30.00 kr (about $4.73). Anecdotally speaking, we checked menu prices via meal-delivery services ( UberEats for the United States and JustEat for Denmark) to see how much this popular burger costs in their respective countries. Menu prices vary from each McDonald’s location, so it’s a little difficult to say exactly how much an American would pay for a Big Mac while visiting Denmark. Fight for 15, which has campaigned for the company to both institute a minimum wage of 15 per hour across the board and allow workers to unionize, also noted that it based its Big Mac prices on. In fact, in many cases you’ll actually pay less for a Big Mac in Denmark than you would in the United States. A McDonald’s customer will pay approximately the same amount - give or take a dollar or two - for a Big Mac in Denmark as they would for a Big Mac in the United States. After publishing this article, some readers asked us if the relatively high pay of McDonald’s employees in Denmark caused the price of the Big Mac, arguably McDonald’s most famous menu item, to skyrocket. We fact-checked this claim in a previous article, and found that it was accurate. īased on the sources available, here are approximate dollar amounts that fast-food burgers cost in the US the year you were born.In March 2021, as Democratic politicians argued for an increase in the minimum wage in the U.S., many social media users pointed out that McDonald’s employees in Denmark already make about $22 an hour. K eep in mind that Wendy's didn't join the competition until 1969 - but their single patties have always weighed 4 ounces. And, some burger prices were not readily available. Like anything else, the prices for these competing products have varied by region since the beginning - so all prices below are approximate, and will vary based on your geographic location.
per patty, they're about half the size of their competitors - but they've been around since 1921, and the chain is arguably the first fast-food chain in the US. If you've never had one, White Castle burgers are also called sliders for several reasons - not the least of which is that they're tiny. in a pound, so to keep a level playing field, that's 4 oz. īy contrast, Burger King's Whopper has been around since 1957 - and the patty was a 1/4 lb. The Quarter Pounder didn't exist until 1971. The chain's iconic Big Mac - which prompted the Economist to begin publishing its Big Mac Index as an international indicator of comparative individual purchasing power in 1986 - wasn't introduced until 1967. INSIDER compared each chain's most basic burger offerings to one another.Ī McDonald's hamburger in 1955 - when the company started - weighed 3.7 ounces, according to BuzzFeed. Some chains have differently sized patties.