Climate damage already ‘locked in’ – but these 10 insights show our future is still being decided

Copyright Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By Liam Gilliver & Craig Saueurs

Published on 06/10/2026 - EURONEWS

From rising sea levels to food systems fuelling climate change – experts have laid out 10 insights that require urgent action.

Past emissions have already “locked in” future climate impacts – but the scale of this damage still depends on what action we take right now, according to a major new study.

The 10 New Insights In Climate Science report is produced by more than 70 scientists from nearly 30 countries and aims to translate complex research into accessible, concise insights to “inform high-stakes decisions”.

Published today (6 October) it warns that the overshooting of 1.5°C, as set out in the legally binding Paris Agreement, carries “rapidly escalating risks of irreversible impacts” for our oceans, glaciers and permafrost – and that the economic and social costs of doing so are greater than previously understood.

10 insights to prevent further climate damage

“The evidence is unequivocal," says Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam

Institute for Climate Impact Research, co-chair of The Earth League and a member of the report’s editorial board.

“1.5°C is a limit that we cross at our own risk. Beyond it, the risks of cascading and potentially irreversible climate impacts increase, with every additional tenth of a degree making them more severe.”

The 10 New Insights highlights, created by Future Earth, The Earth League and the World Climate Research Programme, point to a “narrowing window for action” but one that is still open, showing us what is already locked in, what can still be avoided, and where policy can have the greatest effect.

Ocean heat uptake clouds long-term outlook

The ocean continues to absorb record amounts of heat due to human-caused climate change – locking in further warming for years to come.

In August, global sea surface temperatures reached 21.1°C – the hottest ever recorded. Experts warned last year that the planet’s ocean acidification - where the water’s pH is lowered due to CO₂ absorption - entered the danger zone for the first time.

The new report says deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions are “urgently needed” to prevent further long-term heat accumulation.

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“The ocean has been our planet’s shock absorber,” says Wendy Broadgate, Global Hub Director at Future Earth and a member of the report’s editorial board.

“Because heat takes decades to penetrate ocean depths, today's emissions effectively lock in further warming and sea level rise. Deep, rapid emissions cuts are the only way to limit these risks.”

Sea levels keep rising

Melting glaciers and ice sheets are driving rising seas, putting more people at risk of severe flooding.

The report warns that some sea-level rise is already irreversible due to the impact of past emissions, but the magnitude of this still depends on how quickly the world acts to cut greenhouse gases.

Freshwater sources are getting scarce

Water gaps are widening as continental drying – the long-term, large-scale decline in freshwater availability and water storage – accelerates. According to the UN, By 2030, one-in-two people are expected to face severe water shortages.

“Climate change and growing water use are causing the rapid loss of freshwater across continents, threatening water security, ecosystems, and food production,” the report says.

“The consequences of inaction extend from threats to local livelihoods to cascading impacts across the Earth system.”

n this Tuesday, April 2, 2013 photo, a village girl collects water from the dried “Bada Nadi” river near Bhanjanagar. Copyright 2013 AP. All rights reserved.

Governments are being encouraged to develop holistic water management plans, known as Integrated Water Resource Management, that take into account the entire water cycle: from source to distribution, treatment, reuse and return to the environment.

Nature-based solutions such as restoring wetlands, rivers and forests can also help capture fresh water that remains on land, rather than letting it dry up or run straight into the ocean.

Impacts of overshooting 1.5C

A recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that global temperature rise will exceed 1.5°C, likely within the next few years. This would accelerate much of the environmental degradation the natural world is already experiencing, from shrinking ice sheets to rising sea levels and “unprecedented dieback” of coral reefs and rainforests.

The UNEP says that there are “no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C” and that governments must focus on making the overshoot as small and short as possible.

Food systems still fuel climate change

The report says that transforming food systems, particularly through more plant-rich diets, can deliver major benefits for climate, biodiversity and health, but they must be done “carefully and fairly”.

Globally, food and agriculture contribute one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions, second only to burning fossil fuels – and meat has been identified as the main culprit.

In fact, animal-sourced foods make up between 81 and 86 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions from EU food production, despite only supplying an estimated 32 per cent of calories and 64 per cent of protein.

According to the carbon footprint calculator CO2 Everything, one 100g serving of beef is equivalent to 78.7 km of driving, releasing 15.5 kg CO2 equivalent.

Understanding the ‘social cost’ of carbon

Experts warn that the economic damages caused by carbon emissions are "substantially higher” than previously estimated – adding that every extra tonne of CO2 carries “additional risk”.

“Using more realistic, up-to-date climate models reveal a social cost of carbon up to four times higher,” the report says.

Strengthening claims for compensation

Advances in science have made it possible to trace climate impacts back to the emissions that caused them.

That means scientists can now link a single company or major emitter to warming – and perhaps even to specific losses or damages.

Moving forward, this extra evidence could strengthen climate litigation and demands for compensation.

‘Climate clubs’ can help industries clean up their act

‘Climate clubs’ made up of countries working together on climate and trade policies can create a collective force to cut down on carbon emissions.

These so-called clubs can rally behind carbon border taxes that prevent companies from off-shoring to places with weaker climate policies, for example – a problem known as ‘carbon leakage’.

Related

• Coral reefs are bleaching in extreme heat. Could underwater umbrellas save them?

But there’s a caveat. While climate clubs can accelerate industrial decarbonisation, they can also have a punitive effect on developing countries that lack the tools, money or technology to cut emissions.

That’s why the authors suggest that wealthier nations may need to combine tougher rules with technical or financial support for other economies.

Climate obstruction is getting harder to spot

Progress is being derailed by more than just denialism.

The report says that carbon-heavy industries are holding back effective policy not just by denying climate change exists anymore. Lobbying efforts now also include a bevy of subtler tactics, from greenwashing to the digital spread of disinformation.

To combat this more deceptive form of climate obfuscation, the report calls for greater transparency in lobbying and political donations, stronger rules against making misleading environmental claims and coordinated action against disinformation.

Conflict creates unequal energy transitions

Wars, trade disputes and fierce competition over energy sources are complicating the global push to decarbonise.

Energy security concerns, like those caused by the war on Iran and the war in Ukraine, have not been met with one universal response. While many wealthy countries have invested in renewables as a buffer against shocks in the oil and gas markets, others have doubled down on fossil fuel production or sought new sources overseas.

The report explains that global instability could make the energy transition more unequal than it already is.

Some blocs of nations could wall off neutral or politically unstable nations, ultimately slowing the global efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. And since more often than not, the most vulnerable suffer from price spikes, the authors add that there is valid reason to be concerned about climate justice in the future.

EU suspends beef exports from Namibia due to foot and mouth disease

The largest market for Namibian beef, the European Union, announced it has suspended imports after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which wreaked havoc in Europe 25 years ago.

Issued on: 06/10/2026 - 15:17

Namibia announced its first outbreak of foot-and-mouth (FMD) in September 2026, prompting the EU to suspend exports from 6 October. The disease affecting cattle has been detected in other countries on the continent such as South Africa. Here, farmers prepare their animals for vaccination at a farm near Cape Town, on 15 February, 2026. 

AFP - RODGER BOSCH

Namibia announced last month its first outbreak of foot-and-mouth (FMD) in its primary commercial livestock zone in 60 years, prompting a nationwide ban on livestock movement and meat exports.

"The EU has decided to temporarily suspend the entry into its territory of fresh meat of cattle, sheep and goats...," the EU delegation announced.

The suspension included meat from relevant farmed and wild hooved animals, and certain processed meat products, it said in a statement.

Processed meat that had undergone "the most severe risk-mitigating treatment" remaied eligible for entry, it said.

The EU is Namibia's largest beef market, accounting for more than 80 percent of beef exports.

Around 10 million kilogrammes of Namibian beef went to Europe annually, EU ambassador Ana Beatriz Martins said in an interview with Namibia's NMH media.
Found at 11 farms

A quarter of 40,000 direct jobs involved in exports to Europe would be affected by the suspension, she said.

During the last major FMD outbreak in the EU in 2001, more than six million animals had to be culled, the delegation's statement said.

FMD causes fever and blisters near the hoof and in the mouth that prevent animals from feeding and sometimes leads to death.

The disease has struck several southern African countries, including Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Since the outbreak in southern Namibia was declared on 22 September, it had spread to 11 farms, officials said.

The government's disease-control response included intensified surveillance, tracing and testing, movement controls, veterinary roadblocks and biosecurity measures, agriculture ministry spokesman Romeo Muyunda told AFP.

CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST FASCISM

US top diplomat Rubio says West must choose ‘national power’ or decline

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a combative defence of Washington’s right to wield its “national power” in Athens on Wednesday, while urging Europe to “awaken from its long slumber”.


Issued on: 07/10/2026 -  RFI

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the Pnyx hill, where ancient Athenians held democratic assemblies, with the ancient Parthenon temple atop the Acropolis in the background, in Athens,Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool AP via AP - Mark Schiefelbein

"We are at an inflection point ... not only in the history of my nation but an inflection point in the whole of our civilisation," Rubio said in a speech beneath the Acropolis.

"Either we choose to act now, or lose the choice to act at all," the top US diplomat said.

The United States under President Donald Trump has made its choice, according to Rubio.

"We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power: to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialise our economy, to rebuild our defence, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future," he said.

"There is new competition between great powers again. There is vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, a whole universe of new threats and attacks again," Rubio said.

"We must rebuild our institutions and our alliances to face these threats together," he said.

Rubio said that in Europe he saw encouraging signs of what Washington hoped "will be the beginning of a generational shift, skyrocketing defence spending, a flurry of new partnerships and programmes, expanded manufacturing and production."

"We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago," he said.


Ancient Greeks

His speech, which was packed with praise for the ancient Greeks, followed an address in February when he argued in a speech to world leaders at the Munich Security Conference, that Europe was threatened by mass immigration and called for it to defend Christian civilisation.

Man maditation at the Pnyx, a hill near the Acropolis in Athens, where US Secretary of State Marco Rubio makes a speech on 7 October 2026. AFP

But he also flagged the energy sector, and announced a joint agreement on information-sharing on drug trafficking and terrorism.

"As you see a world that faces ... destabilising events, you recognise how important this alliance with Greece is to the United States," he said, referencing conflict in the Middle East and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In the Middle East, he argued that Iran had "lost complete control" of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, seeking to offer reassurance at a time when the United States is struggling to find a way out of the war just weeks before key US legislative elections.

Rubio took part Wednesday in a "strategic dialogue" with Greece on regional and energy security amid high tensions triggered by the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio. © Yuki Iwamura / AP

One day before Rubio's arrival, Greek police said more than 2,000 demonstrators gathered in central Athens on Tuesday to protest his visit.

Syntagma Square, in the heart of the Greek capital, was closed to traffic, with a heavy police presence to beef up security, AFP photographers saw.

The visit has been overshadowed by media reports about possible conflicts of interest involving the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former fiancee of Donald Trump Jr. and ex-wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

In a letter addressed to Rubio, Congressman Gregory Meeks sought clarification of a Wall Street Journal report alleging that Guilfoyle had stated the United States could create "political change" in European countries.

Rubio is to meet conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday evening, before departing for Lisbon on Thursday.

(with newswires)

Republican unease with Trump spreads to places it was never supposed to reach: report

Travis Gettys
October 5, 2026

RAW STORY

U.S. President Donald Trump dances during a campaign rally for U.S. Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S., August 21, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

Republican unease with President Donald Trump has spread beyond swing-district lawmakers fighting for their political lives.

Senators from some of the country's most reliably red states are now openly challenging him on the economy, the Iran war and more, according to a new report from The Washington Sun.

Trump's approval rating keeps sliding, and now the 80-year-old president is preparing to hold rallies in solidly Republican Oklahoma and Alabama in the coming weeks, possibly a sign the White House may be nervous about his own turf.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), whose state Trump carried by 22 points in 2024, said he won't spin voters about rising prices.

"I'm not going to tell the voters, 'Oh, it's President Biden's fault, and it's not that bad, you shouldn't believe your checkbooks,'" Kennedy told reporters. He later told the Sun that "the main reason for the resurgence in inflation is the Iran war."

Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) represents a state Trump won by more than 40 points and isn't up for re-election until 2031, and he pointed to soaring fuel and grocery costs and said Republicans have fumbled their message on the war.

"We knew that there was a real chance that it would drive gasoline and diesel and fertilizer and all that kind of stuff," Justice said. "We knew that and everything, but we never really dreamed we'd be there this long."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) objected to a series of Trump ads that appear to have been funded by taxpayers, while fellow South Dakotan Sen. Mike Rounds also criticized the TV spots, and he went on to criticize a clawback of nearly $1 billion in congressionally approved funds and Trump's order temporarily expanding foreign beef imports.

Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to look into a Russian oligarch's payment for part of Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding festivities.

"To me, it just stinks. It's corruption. I don't like it," Curtis said in a video.

The GOP and its allies are also spending heavily to hold Senate seats in Alaska, Ohio and Texas – all states Trump won by double digits.

"The trend downwards is very clear," University of Maryland government professor David Karol told the Sun. He said Trump's weakening position makes Republicans "feel more free to separate themselves" from his least popular moves.

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) cautioned that most Republicans still vote with Trump, but he welcomed the independent streak. He told the Sun that "having that image of independence going into this election is critically important to getting Republicans reelected."

'Not okay': Disappointed ranchers go on expletive-filled rant against Trump

US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he makes an announcement about an energy infrastructure project in Alaska, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 30, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Nick Hilden

October 01, 2026 

ALTERNET

Ranchers in battleground states are furious about diesel prices and beef imports. According to a new report published on Thursday by the conservative newspaper the Washington Examiner, not only has the situation made said ranchers cursing mad toward President Donald Trump, but it could “cost Republicans a Senate seat in Kansas.”

“He doesn’t know what s—— is coming out of his mouth,” one particularly blunt farmer told the Examiner when asked about Trump’s performance. As the paper explains, “High diesel prices, expensive feed, pickups that cost almost as much as a house, and escalating land prices are putting the squeeze on the state’s cattle industry. Kansas produces almost a quarter of the nation’s beef and the issue has moved to the center of a tight Senate race, heaping pressure on the Republican candidate, Sen. Roger Marshall. And then there was the decision by President Donald Trump to lift tariffs and allow in hundreds of thousands of tons of ground beef from Central and South America.”

“I’m disappointed in Trump and the cattlemen’s association for not raising cane,” said 82-year-old rancher Chuck Madron. “They’re letting cattle in from Uruguay. They’re letting beef in from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. What about us ranchers? Diesel is over $6.”


The high cost of diesel is being felt by everyone, stockyard owner Tylen Layton told the Examiner, saying it is driving down the prices of cattle at auction. His numbers show that the cost of moving an animal has risen by $1.50 per mile. “It just changed the whole dynamics of everything,” he explained. “You know, people can’t afford to give as much for the cattle now because they’re trying to afford the trucking to get them to their final destinations.” That translates to a reduction of $40 to $60 per 100 pounds, or about $300 to $600 less per head.

What’s more, writes the Examiner, “Trump’s move to allow in cheap exports has exasperated locals, who see it helping meat processors, or packers, or McDonald’s, but not shoppers or ranchers.” As Layton explained, “The problem is that we haven’t done the first thing to make beef cheaper for the Wichita, Kansas, housewife or the New York City housewife. They’re hurting us, making it cheap for the packers, but the packers aren’t going to bring their prices down when they sell it to the retailers.” According to the Examiner, ranchers are also concerned about an ICE crackdown on meatpacking plants in the state. As the paper explains, “The fear is that processing will grind to a halt if staff — mostly immigrants, some legal, some undocumented — stay home. The result is an outpouring of frustration with the Trump administration, which people see as too close to voters on the coasts and too far from beef country.”


As a result, “Democrats see an opening in a state that has not let them have a look in since the 1930s. Their challenger, Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, took a 2-point lead over Marshall in a recent Emerson College/Nexstar poll.” In a recent debate, Hamilton blasted “trade wars, which actually in the last Trump administration cost beef farm beef ranchers in Kansas a billion dollars in trade that went to Brazil and Argentina.” He also decried the “diminishing of the workforce and arresting the workforce,” asserting that it was “making it harder for people to work in the livestock industry,” adding, “This is not okay.”

For his part, Marshall attempted to defend the tariffs, though he later gave a nod to political reality, toning down his once full-throated endorsement for immigration enforcement to signal a degree of disquiet. “When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”

“That leaves Kansas ranchers, like farmers across the country, dealing with crippling diesel prices,” writes the Examiner. “Jim Moore, a fourth-generation rancher, said it costs him $2,000 now to fill up his three tractors. A president who made much of his support from the farming community, he said, had forgotten his friends when they needed him.”

The most right-wing county in Texas is shifting

Texas Gov Greg Abbott addresses former U.S. President Donald Trump in Weslaco, Texas, U.S. June 30, 2021. Brandon Bell / Pool via REUTERS

Sarah K. Burris

October 01, 2026 

ALTERNET

The right wing can't stop the changes in Texas.

Houston Chronicle journalist and columnist Chris Tomlinson reported on Thursday that Fort Worth, Texas, isn't what it once was — and those changes likely won't end with the 2026 midterm election.

Tomlinson spoke to Republican state Senate candidate Leigh Wambsganss, who once said that she wasn't merely a MAGA Republican but she was “Ultra-MAGA." Like Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), however, she began scrubbing President Donald Trump from her website. In fact, she's removing the word "Republican" too.

"The once bright red color is now dark blue," said Tomlinson.

"Wambsganss made her name as political director for Patriot Mobile, a Christian nationalist wireless provider that backed fundamentalists in school board elections," the Chronicle reported. "She was once considered a shoo-in on the party’s conservative fringe, where Fort Worth politicians have traditionally done well."


That has changed significantly. Wambsganss previously lost the seat to Democrat Taylor Rehmet in a Feb. 2026 special election.

The report said the state is experiencing one of the biggest political shifts since 1820. Demographics are changing, economics are changing and with it the social shifts and politics come with it.

Now, Wambsganss' campaign is looking a lot like Rehmet's.


"Her strategy of running away from her past begs the question: Are voters leaving the Republican Party, or is President Donald Trump’s Republican Party leaving them?

The important part to know about the Fort Worth area is that it wasn't along ago that "white men chased Black Union soldiers from a polling station in Falls County," Tomlinson recalled from a story his great-grandfather told him. His grandfather was a member of the Dallas Klan, believing that "God intended for them to rule the world." The Klan controlled both Dallas and Forth Worth.

In all of Texas' 254 counties, "Fort Worth and Tarrant County have always leaned hardest to the right," the reporter explained.


Rehmet told him, “They've lost a lot of folks in the middle. We can talk here all day about Republican-Democrat, but most people are just regular working folks. They don't have the luxury to really be super politically active. They're working two jobs. They're taking care of their kids. And those are the folks that I think of whenever I'm ready to go serve, because that's the majority of this district.”

Tony Ortiz, the publisher of the right-wing daily newspaper Current Revolt, said that a lot of this comes down to immigration and the harsh policies from the Republicans to remove anyone who may look like an immigrant, regardless of whether they are criminals, documented or not. It isn't isolated to Latinos either; he said that those in North Texas are worried about "South Asians and Muslims."

The Tarrant County diversity shift began in 2015, though whites still dominate the county's population.

“A lot of this is like a sudden realization of an entire demographic realizing that they are becoming the minority,” Ortiz said. “You blink and you’ve got all of these temples and restaurants and mosques and different driving habits and different languages, and you think, ‘Whoa, what happened?’”



“You think, ‘I need to do something,’ but you’re a little late in doing something. You should have been doing something maybe five, seven or eight years ago,” he explained.


Ortiz identifies as "brown," and accepts his Mexican American heritage.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are set to appear in the state this week, where they will celebrate all of the work they've done on "the economy," another report from the Houston Chronicle said.

 

Burger money: what the world’s biggest economies can really buy with a Big Mac

There is a long running debate of the best way to compare the value of emerging markets' economies with the developed world: nominal GDP in dollars, or the price adjusted PPP version. What if you just valued them in burgers and looked at what your could buy with a wallet full of Big Macs? / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin September 26, 2026

This month the Big Mac index turns 40. The Economist launched it in September 1986 as a joke with a serious point: if a burger costs $6.22 in New York and the equivalent of $2.45 in Mumbai, then either the rupee is badly undervalued or the dollar measures something other than what people can actually afford. Four decades on, the burger has become the most famous shorthand for purchasing power parity (PPP), the economists’ attempt to compare living standards once you strip out the distortions of market exchange rates.

IntelliNews has taken the joke one step further. Imagine that dollars, euros and rubles did not exist and that everyone was paid, taxed and priced in Big Macs. A country’s GDP would be counted in burgers. Wages would be counted in burgers. A kilogram of potatoes, an iPhone and a new Lada would all carry a burger price tag. What would the world economy look like?

The answer is that the burger turns the rankings upside down, and then halfway back again. Anything grown and sold locally, such as rice, potatoes and a flat in town, is cheap in burger money in the poorer countries, so an Indian or Egyptian household looks far better off than its dollar income suggests. Anything that trades at a world price, such as an iPhone or an imported car, costs the same in dollars everywhere, so in burger money it is ruinously expensive exactly where people are poorest. Burger money flatters you at the market stall and humiliates you at the Apple store.

Two ways to count the world economy

Start with the conventional numbers. The IMF’s April 2026 World Economic Outlook ranks economies two ways. Nominal GDP converts local output into dollars at market exchange rates. GDP at PPP adjusts for the fact that a dollar goes much further in Delhi than in Dallas. The two lists overlap heavily, but the order changes a lot. China is already the biggest economy in the world at PPP, at $44.3 trillion against America’s $32.4 trillion. India jumps from sixth to third. Russia rises from ninth to fourth, ahead of Japan and Germany, while Indonesia and Turkey, 17th and 16th in dollars, break into the PPP top 15.

The last column of Table 1 is the key to what follows. It shows how much further a dollar’s worth of local currency stretches at home, according to the IMF. In the US it is 1.0 by definition. In Egypt it is 6.0 and in India 4.6: a dollar changed into Egyptian pounds buys six times as much in Cairo as it does in Cleveland.

Table 1. Nominal v PPP GDP, 2026 estimates

Country	Nominal GDP $bn	Rank	PPP GDP $bn	Rank	GDP/head $	PPP GDP/head $	PPP / nominal
US	32,384	1	32,384	2	94,430	94,430	1.00
China	20,852	2	44,295	1	14,874	31,596	2.12
Germany	5,453	3	6,408	6	65,303	76,747	1.18
Japan	4,379	4	7,262	5	35,703	59,207	1.66
UK	4,265	5	4,721	10	61,056	67,585	1.11
India	4,153	6	18,902	3	2,813	12,801	4.55
France	3,596	7	4,734	9	52,083	68,567	1.32
Italy	2,738	8	3,872	12	46,505	65,761	1.41
Russia	2,656	9	7,525	4	18,525	52,479	2.83
Brazil	2,636	10	5,230	8	12,313	24,428	1.98
Canada	2,507	11	2,911	16	60,305	70,006	1.16
Australia	2,124	12	2,099	22	75,648	74,755	0.99
Mexico	2,121	13	3,582	13	15,779	26,643	1.69
Spain	2,091	14	2,978	15	41,563	59,187	1.42
South Korea	1,931	15	3,541	14	37,412	68,624	1.83
Turkey	1,640	16	4,025	11	19,018	46,672	2.45
Indonesia	1,540	17	5,449	7	5,362	18,973	3.54
Saudi Arabia	1,389	19	2,895	17	37,811	78,815	2.08
Egypt	430	>25	2,567	18	3,904	23,321	5.97
Nigeria	377	>25	2,424	19	1,556	9,994	6.42
Poland	1,134	21	2,164	21	31,336	59,792	1.91

Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2026 (2026 estimates). The countries are the union of the top 15 by nominal GDP and the top 15 at PPP, plus Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria and Poland, the next largest at PPP.

The burger exchange rate

The Big Mac index turns a burger into an exchange rate. Divide the local price by the American price and you get the “burger rate”, the exchange rate at which a Big Mac would cost the same everywhere. In July 2026 a Big Mac cost CNY26.50 in China and $6.22 in the US, which implies a burger rate of CNY4.26 to the dollar. The market rate this year has averaged CNY6.82, so by burger logic the yuan is 38% undervalued.

Table 2 applies the same arithmetic to every country and compares the burger rate with the average market rate so far in 2026. It also shows how far each currency has moved against the dollar since January 2, because the answer depends heavily on the day you ask. The euro countries are priced separately, using the national prices in The Economist’s source data rather than the euro-area average of EUR6.19, which is why Germany at EUR6.99 looks much more overvalued than France at EUR5.60.

Two countries need special handling. McDonald’s left Russia in 2022 and The Economist dropped it from the index; we use the RUB221 Big Hit sold by its successor, Vkusno i Tochka. India has never sold a beef Big Mac, so the index uses the chicken Maharaja Mac. Nigeria has no McDonald’s at all and drops out of the burger tables.

Table 2. The burger exchange rate v the market, 2026

Country	Big Mac, local	Burger rate (local per $)	2026 avg market rate	Currency v $, Jan 2-Sep 25	Over(+)/under(-) valued at 2026 avg	Range over 2026
US	$6.22	1.00	1.00	+0.0%	+0.0%	-
China	CNY26.50	4.26	6.82	+4.2%	-37.6%	-39% to -36%
Germany	EUR6.99	1.12	0.86	-2.9%	+30.5%	+28% to +35%
Japan	JPY500	80.39	159	-0.3%	-49.3%	-51% to -47%
UK	GBP5.49	0.88	0.74	-1.6%	+18.7%	+16% to +22%
India	INR236	37.98	93.93	-6.1%	-59.6%	-61% to -58%
France	EUR5.60	0.90	0.86	-2.9%	+4.6%	+2% to +8%
Italy	EUR6.56	1.05	0.86	-2.9%	+22.5%	+20% to +27%
Russia	RUB221	35.53	78.27	-4.7%	-54.6%	-59% to -50%
Brazil	BRL23.90	3.84	5.15	+4.7%	-25.5%	-30% to -22%
Canada	CAD8.17	1.31	1.39	-2.9%	-5.2%	-8% to -3%
Australia	AUD8.50	1.37	1.42	+5.0%	-3.9%	-9% to -1%
Mexico	MXN109	17.52	17.40	+1.2%	+0.7%	-3% to +4%
Spain	EUR5.90	0.95	0.86	-2.9%	+10.2%	+8% to +14%
South Korea	KRW5,700	916	1,463	+5.6%	-37.4%	-41% to -32%
Turkey	TRY325	52.25	45.69	-12.1%	+14.4%	+7% to +22%
Indonesia	IDR43,000	6,913	17,421	-6.8%	-60.3%	-62% to -59%
Saudi Arabia	SAR19.00	3.05	3.75	+0.0%	-18.5%	-19% to -19%
Egypt	EGP145	23.31	50.56	-8.0%	-53.9%	-57% to -50%
Poland	PLN23.50	3.78	3.68	-6.5%	+2.8%	-2% to +8%

Source: The Economist Big Mac index, July 2026 (national euro-area prices from its source file); Russia: Vkusno i Tochka Big Hit; India: Maharaja Mac. Exchange rates: exchange-rates.org daily data to September 25, 2026. The range shows the valuation at the currency’s weakest and strongest 2026 rates. bne IntelliNews calculations.

Chart 1. Most currencies have moved 5-10% against the dollar this year; the ruble swung 23% between its May high and its September low.

How much the exchange rate matters

Currency swings are exactly the noise burger money is designed to remove, and 2026 has been a noisy year. The Turkish lira has lost 12% against the dollar since January. The rupee, the rupiah, the zloty and the Egyptian pound have each lost 6-8%. The won, the Australian dollar, the real and the yuan have gained 4-6%. The ruble has been the most volatile: it strengthened to RUB70.85 per dollar in late May and then slid to RUB87.30 by early September, a 23% swing inside four months.

In dollar terms those swings reorder the league table without a single extra tonne of steel being made. At the exchange rates of January 2, India’s 2026 GDP comes to $4.33 trillion, putting it fifth, ahead of the UK. At September’s rates it is $4.07 trillion and back in sixth. Russia was ninth at January rates but has slipped to tenth behind Brazil, whose real has strengthened. At the ruble’s May peak Russia would have been the world’s eighth-largest economy, ahead of Italy, at $2.94 trillion. At its September low it would have been 11th, behind Canada, at $2.38 trillion. The same Russian economy was worth $550bn more or less depending on the week. Spain dropped from 12th to 15th between January and September, while Australia climbed from 14th to 12th. Turkey’s dollar GDP shrank by $210bn with no change in real output.

The burger ranking does not move at all when currencies move, because it never touches an exchange rate: local GDP is divided by the local price of a local burger. What does move it is the burger price itself. Between the January and July 2026 editions the US Big Mac rose from $6.12 to $6.22, and Turkish burger prices have risen 23-fold since 2020. Inflation can distort burger money; currency speculation cannot. That is its great virtue. Its weakness, discussed below, is that a burger is not a basket.

Table 3. How the exchange rate reorders the league table

Country	Nominal GDP at Jan 2 FX, $bn	Rank	At Sep 25 FX, $bn	Rank	At weakest 2026 FX	At strongest 2026 FX	Burger GDP rank (FX-proof)
US	32,384	1	32,384	1	32,384	32,384	2
China	20,346	2	21,197	2	20,336	21,253	1
Germany	5,505	3	5,348	3	5,331	5,643	6
Japan	4,428	4	4,414	4	4,238	4,550	4
UK	4,271	6	4,203	5	4,174	4,383	8
India	4,334	5	4,071	6	4,027	4,341	3
France	3,631	7	3,527	7	3,516	3,721	10
Italy	2,764	8	2,686	8	2,677	2,834	13
Russia	2,584	9	2,464	10	2,382	2,935	5
Brazil	2,505	11	2,622	9	2,461	2,768	9
Canada	2,528	10	2,456	11	2,440	2,574	12
Australia	2,021	14	2,123	12	2,015	2,192	14
Mexico	2,061	13	2,086	13	2,036	2,185	15
Spain	2,111	12	2,051	15	2,045	2,164	16
South Korea	1,959	15	2,068	14	1,812	2,109	11
Turkey	1,741	16	1,531	16	1,531	1,744	18
Indonesia	1,606	17	1,497	17	1,465	1,609	7
Saudi Arabia	1,389	18	1,389	18	1,389	1,389	17
Egypt	455	20	419	20	397	465	20
Nigeria	360	21	388	21	357	391	-
Poland	1,161	19	1,086	19	1,082	1,194	19

Local-currency GDP is taken as the IMF dollar estimate converted at the 2026 year-to-date average rate, then reconverted at each date. Ranks are within these 21 countries. Source: IMF WEO April 2026; exchange-rates.org; bne IntelliNews calculations.

The world economy in burgers

Now convert every economy into burgers. Divide each country’s local-currency GDP by its local Big Mac price and multiply by the American price, so that the result reads in “burger dollars”. Chart 2 and Table 4 show the result.

China edges past the US to become the biggest burger economy in the world, at $33.4 trillion of burger dollars against $32.4 trillion. India comes third at $10.3 trillion. Japan is the big mover: its Big Mac costs just JPY500, half the American price at market rates, the cheapest burger in the rich world, so Japan’s burger GDP of $8.6 trillion is almost double its dollar GDP and more than the IMF’s PPP estimate. Russia rises to fifth. Germany falls to sixth and shrinks: its EUR6.99 Big Mac is 30% dearer than an American one, so in burger money Germany’s economy is smaller than in dollars. Turkey is the most striking case. At TRY325 its Big Mac costs more than an American one, so burger money gives Turkey no PPP bonus at all, although the IMF says a dollar goes 2.5 times further there.

The burger is a half-hearted version of PPP. For rich countries it tracks the IMF numbers closely. For poor countries it captures only part of the gap. By the IMF’s reckoning a dollar goes six times as far in Egypt; by burger reckoning barely twice as far. The reason is that in Cairo, Jakarta or Mumbai a Big Mac is not a cheap everyday meal but a modest middle-class treat, priced for air-conditioned malls and paid for partly in imported beef, buns and franchise fees. The burger is too expensive to be a fair yardstick for the poorest.

In burgers per person the gap between rich and poor narrows but does not close. The average American’s share of national output is worth 15,182 Big Macs a year, or 42 a day. An Indian’s share buys 1,118 a year, barely three a day; an Egyptian’s 1,361. A Russian’s share of national output, 6,561 burgers a year, puts Russia level with Italy and Spain in burger money, where in dollars it sits alongside Mexico and China.

Table 4. GDP in burger money, 2026

Country	Nominal GDP $bn	Rank	Burger GDP, burger $bn	Rank	IMF PPP GDP $bn	Rank	Big Macs per head per year	Per day
China	20,852	2	33,400	1	44,295	1	3,830	10.5
US	32,384	1	32,384	2	32,384	2	15,182	41.6
India	4,153	6	10,271	3	18,902	3	1,118	3.1
Japan	4,379	4	8,637	4	7,262	5	11,321	31.0
Russia	2,656	9	5,852	5	7,525	4	6,561	18.0
Germany	5,453	3	4,178	6	6,408	6	8,044	22.0
Indonesia	1,540	17	3,880	7	5,449	7	2,172	6.0
UK	4,265	5	3,593	8	4,721	10	8,269	22.7
Brazil	2,636	10	3,536	9	5,230	8	2,655	7.3
France	3,596	7	3,439	10	4,734	9	8,008	21.9
South Korea	1,931	15	3,083	11	3,541	14	9,603	26.3
Canada	2,507	11	2,644	12	2,911	16	10,223	28.0
Italy	2,738	8	2,235	13	3,872	12	6,104	16.7
Australia	2,124	12	2,209	14	2,099	22	12,650	34.7
Mexico	2,121	13	2,105	15	3,582	13	2,518	6.9
Spain	2,091	14	1,898	16	2,978	15	6,065	16.6
Saudi Arabia	1,389	19	1,705	17	2,895	17	7,463	20.4
Turkey	1,640	16	1,434	18	4,025	11	2,673	7.3
Poland	1,134	21	1,104	19	2,164	21	4,902	13.4
Egypt	430	>25	932	20	2,567	18	1,361	3.7

Burger GDP = local-currency GDP / local Big Mac price x US Big Mac price ($6.22). Nominal and PPP ranks are global IMF ranks. Source: IMF WEO April 2026; The Economist Big Mac index, July 2026; bne IntelliNews calculations.

Chart 2. Burger money pulls the emerging markets up towards their IMF PPP values, but only part of the way.

Who wants to be a burger millionaire?

Being a millionaire means very different things in different currencies. Table 5 shows how many Big Macs a local-currency millionaire can buy, and how many an American dollar millionaire could buy after changing the money at today’s exchange rate.

A dollar millionaire can buy 160,772 Big Macs at home. A British pound millionaire does better, with 182,149, and a euro millionaire in France 178,571. A ruble millionaire, by contrast, can afford 4,525 Big Hits, a yen millionaire 2,000 burgers and a won millionaire only 175. In Indonesia almost everyone is a millionaire: a million rupiah buys 23 Big Macs, enough for a month of lunches but hardly a fortune.

The more interesting column is the last one. Take $1mn to Jakarta and change it into rupiah, and you can buy 416,605 Big Macs, two and a half times as many as at home. The same million buys 405,578 burgers in India and 381,842 Big Hits in Russia. That is the burger version of an undervalued currency: an arbitrage opportunity for anyone paid in dollars and eating in rupiah. Only in the UK, the euro countries and Turkey does the dollar millionaire lose out, because their burgers are dearer than America’s.

Table 5. How many Big Macs can a millionaire buy?

Country	Currency	Big Macs for 1mn in local currency	Big Macs for $1mn changed at Sep 25 rate	v a dollarmnaire at home
Indonesia	IDR	23	416,605	2.59x
India	INR	4,233	405,578	2.52x
Russia	RUB	4,525	381,842	2.38x
Egypt	EGP	6,897	357,528	2.22x
Japan	JPY	2,000	314,590	1.96x
China	CNY	37,736	253,328	1.58x
South Korea	KRW	175	239,637	1.49x
Brazil	BRL	41,841	216,787	1.35x
Saudi Arabia	SAR	52,632	197,368	1.23x
Canada	CAD	122,399	173,097	1.08x
Australia	AUD	117,647	167,282	1.04x
Poland	PLN	42,553	163,374	1.02x
Mexico	MXN	9,174	162,239	1.01x
US	$	160,772	160,772	1.00x
France	EUR	178,571	156,757	0.98x
Turkey	TRY	3,077	150,592	0.94x
Spain	EUR	169,492	148,786	0.93x
UK	GBP	182,149	137,432	0.85x
Italy	EUR	152,439	133,817	0.83x
Germany	EUR	143,062	125,585	0.78x

Source: The Economist Big Mac index, July 2026 local prices (Russia: Big Hit RUB221); exchange-rates.org, September 25, 2026; bne IntelliNews calculations.

The burger shopping basket

So, what can you buy with your burger money? We priced three staples in every country: 10kg of sugar, 10kg of potatoes and 10kg of rice. The thinking was that potatoes and rice are grown locally and so should be cheap in poorer countries, while sugar is an internationally traded commodity with a roughly common world price, and so should be relatively expensive wherever wages are low.

The data broadly bear this out, with some surprises. In dollars the retail price of a kilogram of sugar varies about fourfold across our 20 countries, from $0.68 in India to $2.71 in Japan. Potatoes vary elevenfold, from $0.40 in India to $4.40 in South Korea, and rice nearly eightfold, from $0.73 in India to $5.60 in Japan. The more local the product, the wider the price range.

Translate into burgers and the pattern sharpens. In India 10kg of potatoes costs 1.6 Big Macs but 10kg of sugar costs 2.8, almost twice as much. In the US it is the other way round: potatoes cost 5.3 Big Macs and sugar 3.1. In Egypt potatoes cost 1.6 burgers and sugar 2.9. In Turkey 10kg of potatoes costs less than one Big Mac. The traded good costs relatively more where people are poor, and the home-grown food relatively less.

The most expensive basket in burger money is Japan’s, at 36 Big Macs, and almost half of that is rice. Japan protects its rice farmers with steep tariffs and suffered a rice shortage that roughly doubled prices in 2025; 10kg of rice costs 17.6 Big Macs there, against 2.7 in China and 3.0 in India. South Korea, another rice-protecting Asian economy with expensive farmland, comes second at 23.9 burgers.

The cheapest baskets are in Turkey (6.2 burgers), Poland (6.7), Egypt (7.2) and India (7.3). Russia, at 17.2 burgers, is slightly dearer than the US: its cheap Big Hit makes everything else look expensive, and 10kg of sugar costs 7.4 burgers, more than anywhere except Japan.

Table 6. The burger basket: what 10kg of staples costs in Big Macs

Country	Sugar $/kg	Potatoes $/kg	Rice $/kg	10kg sugar, Big Macs	10kg potatoes, Big Macs	10kg rice, Big Macs	Basket, Big Macs
Turkey	$1.02	$0.63	$2.49	1.5	0.9	3.7	6.2
Poland	$1.43	$0.98	$1.68	2.3	1.6	2.7	6.7
Egypt	$0.81	$0.44	$0.76	2.9	1.6	2.7	7.2
India	$0.68	$0.40	$0.73	2.8	1.6	3.0	7.3
Spain	$1.14	$2.09	$1.88	1.7	3.1	2.8	7.6
UK	$1.46	$2.02	$2.50	2.0	2.8	3.4	8.2
Brazil	$1.11	$1.33	$1.43	2.4	2.9	3.1	8.4
Germany	$1.14	$1.71	$4.06	1.4	2.1	5.1	8.7
Mexico	$1.88	$2.38	$2.05	3.1	3.9	3.3	10.3
Saudi Arabia	$1.25	$1.52	$2.49	2.5	3.0	4.9	10.4
France	$1.14	$2.59	$3.02	1.8	4.1	4.7	10.6
Italy	$2.28	$2.28	$3.40	3.0	3.0	4.5	10.6
China	$2.65	$0.84	$1.08	6.7	2.1	2.7	11.6
Australia	$1.26	$3.22	$2.60	2.1	5.4	4.4	11.8
Indonesia	$0.98	$1.45	$0.97	4.1	6.0	4.0	14.2
Canada	$1.20	$3.00	$4.08	2.1	5.2	7.1	14.3
US	$1.90	$3.30	$5.22	3.1	5.3	8.4	16.8
Russia	$1.95	$0.88	$1.68	7.4	3.4	6.4	17.2
South Korea	$1.81	$4.40	$3.83	4.3	10.5	9.1	23.9
Japan	$2.71	$3.12	$5.60	8.5	9.8	17.6	36.0

Source: Numbeo market prices, September 2026; sugar: GlobalProductPrices, January 2026; The Economist Big Mac index, July 2026; bne IntelliNews calculations. Dollar prices at late-September exchange rates.

Chart 3. Japan’s expensive rice makes its burger basket the dearest; Turkey’s cheap potatoes make its basket the cheapest.

The iPhone test: where burger money runs out

Imported manufactured goods are where the burger world becomes brutal. An iPhone 17 with 256GB of storage costs between $929, in the US after Apple raised the price by $100 on September 9, and about $2,044 in Turkey, where taxes and duties push the price up. That is barely a twofold range, narrower even than for sugar. Apple sets what is in effect a world price.

In burger money it is anything but uniform. An American pays 149 Big Macs for the phone and a German 157. An Indian pays 423 Big Macs, an Indonesian 413 and an Egyptian 534, three and a half times as many burgers as an American. Measured against the average monthly salary the gap is starker still: the iPhone costs a US worker a fifth of a month’s take-home pay, a Brazilian 2.7 months, an Indonesian 3.3 months and an Egyptian almost nine months. A Nigerian on the average net wage would have to work for more than 11 months.

Russia offers the exception that proves the rule. Apple left in 2022, but iPhones still arrive through “parallel imports” via Central Asia and the Gulf. The street price of about RUB55,000 ($652) is well below the US list price, because grey importers pay no Apple margin and little duty. Even so, the phone costs 249 Big Hits, two-thirds more burgers than in America.

Cars: the best-seller in burgers

Cars give the clearest split between what a country makes for itself and what it has to buy abroad. China’s best-selling car at retail in 2025 was the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, a tiny electric runabout made in Liuzhou that costs CNY44,800. That is 1,691 Big Macs, the cheapest best-seller in burger money in our sample. China’s fourth-most popular car, the Tesla Model Y, costs 9,770 burgers, nearly six times as much. It is built in Shanghai, but its price is set with one eye on world markets. In South Korea the locally built Kia Sorento costs 6,281 Big Macs against 8,770 for the imported Model Y, which in May became the first import ever to top Korea’s monthly sales chart.

The world price shows up most clearly when the same car is sold in two countries. The Renault Clio is the best-selling car in both France and Turkey, and every one is built at the Oyak-Renault plant in Bursa. In France the new Clio starts at EUR19,900, or 3,554 Big Macs. In Turkey it starts at TRY1.83mn, which at the current rate is $37,400, some $14,700 more than in France, largely because of Turkey’s heavy special consumption tax on cars. That is 5,631 burgers: the Turks pay 60% more burgers for a car they make themselves.

The most expensive best-seller in burger money is Indonesia’s Toyota Kijang Innova, a family people-carrier built locally that costs IDR437.7mn, or 10,179 Big Macs. Russia’s Lada Granta, still the country’s most popular car, costs RUB771,000, or 3,489 Big Hits, cheaper in burger money than a Ford Puma in Britain (4,944) or an F-150 pickup in America (6,445). Mexico offers a twist: the Chinese-built Chevrolet Aveo, which overtook the locally made Nissan Versa as the country’s best-seller in March, costs 2,890 Big Macs against 3,513 for the Nissan. Chinese exports are now undercutting the local industry on price.

Table 7. Imports and cars in burger money

Country	iPhone 17 256GB, Big Macs	iPhone, months of avg net salary	Best-selling car 2025	Made	List price	Car, Big Macs
US	149	0.2	Ford F-Series pickup	local	$40,085	6,445
China	257	0.8	Wuling Hongguang Mini EV	local	CNY44,800	1,691
Germany	157	0.3	VW Golf	local	EUR29,835	4,268
Japan	320	0.4	Honda N-Box kei car	local	JPY1,768,800	3,538
UK	164	0.3	Ford Puma	imported	GBP27,145	4,944
India	423	2.1	Maruti Suzuki Dzire	local	INR630,600	2,669
France	200	0.4	Renault Clio 5	imported	EUR19,900	3,554
Italy	172	0.6	Fiat Panda/Pandina	local	EUR15,950	2,431
Russia	249	0.6	Lada Granta	local	RUB771,000	3,489
Brazil	347	2.7	Fiat Strada pickup	local	BRL111,990	4,686
Canada	167	0.3	Ford F-Series	imported from US	CAD55,485	6,791
Australia	182	0.2	Ford Ranger ute	imported	AUD49,230	5,792
Mexico	202	1.4	Nissan Versa	local	MXN382,900	3,513
Spain	188	0.6	Dacia Sandero	imported	EUR15,490	2,625
South Korea	254	0.4	Kia Sorento	local	KRW35,800,000	6,281
Turkey	308	1.7	Renault Clio	local	TRY1,830,000	5,631
Indonesia	413	3.3	Toyota Kijang Innova	local	IDR437,700,000	10,179
Saudi Arabia	226	0.5	Toyota Camry	imported	SAR106,950	5,629
Egypt	534	8.8	Nissan Sunny	reported locally assembled	EGP765,000	5,276
Poland	191	0.6	Toyota Corolla	imported	PLN114,100	4,855

Source: Apple country stores and retailers, August-September 2026 (Russia: parallel-import street price, June 2026); Numbeo average net salary, September 2026; best-selling-cars.com, bestsellingcarsblog.com, national associations and dealer list prices, 2026; bne IntelliNews calculations. Where made to be checked before publication for Brazil, Poland, Egypt and Canada.

Chart 4. The iPhone costs roughly the same in dollars everywhere, so in burger money it is dearest where burgers are cheapest.

Chart 5. Locally made cars are cheap in burger money; imports and cars priced for world markets are not.

Paid in burgers

The final test is the pay packet. Table 8 converts each country’s minimum wage and its average net salary into burgers per month, and adds two other everyday measures: the rent on a one-bedroom flat in a city centre and the number of litres of petrol one Big Mac would buy.

A worker on Australia’s national minimum wage earns 512 Big Macs a month, and a British worker on the national living wage 401. An American on the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, unchanged since 2009, earns just 202, about the same as a Pole. At the bottom, the Indian national floor wage buys only 20 Big Macs a month, although most states set higher rates, and the Egyptian private-sector minimum 55. On the average take-home salary, an American can buy a Big Mac with 13 minutes’ work; a Chinese worker needs 33 minutes, a Russian 26, a Brazilian 81, an Indonesian 83 and an Egyptian nearly three hours.

Rent works the other way from the iPhone. Housing cannot be imported, so in burger money a city-centre flat is cheapest where incomes are lowest: 63 Big Macs a month in Egypt and 67 in India, against 302 in the US. Russia is the outlier again: at 258 Big Hits a month, a flat in a Russian city costs almost as many burgers as one in America. Petrol reflects subsidies more than anything: in Saudi Arabia a Big Mac buys 7.2 litres, in India just 2.0.

Table 8. Wages, rent and petrol in burger money

Country	Minimum wage, Big Macs/month	Avg net salary, Big Macs/month	Minutes of work per Big Mac	1-bed city-centre rent, Big Macs/month	Litres of petrol per Big Mac
US	202	792	13	302	5.4
Australia	512	763	14	300	4.1
Japan	389	749	14	211	2.5
South Korea	378	622	17	159	2.8
Canada	381	587	18	252	4.3
UK	401	522	20	209	3.3
France	333	494	21	158	2.7
Germany	345	478	22	132	3.3
Saudi Arabia	211	426	24	137	7.2
Russia	123	402	26	258	2.8
Spain	242	340	31	175	3.4
China	103	312	33	113	2.8
Poland	205	304	34	135	3.4
Italy	-	293	36	126	3.2
India	20	203	51	67	2.0
Turkey	102	184	57	103	4.5
Mexico	88	147	71	135	3.7
Brazil	68	129	81	94	3.3
Indonesia	133	125	83	140	2.8
Egypt	55	61	171	63	5.7

Minimum wages: Trading Economics, September 2026 (US federal; China: Shanghai; India: national floor level; Indonesia: Jakarta; Saudi Arabia: nationals only; Italy has no statutory minimum). Hourly rates converted at 173.3 hours a month (South Korea 209). Salary, rent and petrol: Numbeo, September 2026. Minutes of work assume 173.3 hours a month. bne IntelliNews calculations.

Russia’s borscht index

Russians have their own version of the burger test, and it predates McDonald’s departure. The borscht index tracks the cost of the “borscht set” of vegetables: beetroot, cabbage, potatoes, carrots and onions. It is compiled from Rosstat’s weekly price survey by retailers’ associations, brokers and the press, and IntelliNews has called it Russia’s answer to the Big Mac index. Unlike the burger, it is made entirely of local produce, so it measures the harvest and the cost of living rather than the currency.

We have covered it several times. In August 2021 our analysis found that the number of borscht portions an average Russian income could buy had fallen in the first half of the year in 64 of the country’s 85 regions. By February 2022 the index had doubled in five years, and packet sizes were shrinking. In December 2025 the cost of the Olivier salad, the other Russian New Year staple, was up 4% on the year. In January we reported that a strong 2025 harvest would bring borscht prices down.

It did, spectacularly, and then prices came back. A poor 2024 harvest drove the potato price up by 166.5% year on year by spring 2025, with onions up 87% and cabbage up 57%. Farmers responded by planting more, a good 2025 harvest followed, and by May 2026 the borscht set was 24.8% cheaper than a year earlier, with potatoes down 38.7% and cabbage down 37.3%. Potato producer prices fell by more than 60%. Burned by the collapse, farmers cut their plantings this spring, and by late August retail prices were rising again, potatoes and cabbage both up 35% year on year according to Rosstat. The potato harvest is forecast to be 11.5% smaller. It is a textbook “cobweb” cycle, and its swings have dwarfed consumer price inflation of under 5%.

The index is also seasonal. According to Rosstat the national average cost of a borscht set rose from RUB205 in December 2025 to RUB320 in June 2026, up 56% in six months as the stored harvest ran down, against annual inflation of 4.64%. In burger money that is a jump from 0.9 to 1.4 Big Hits. In Moscow the set cost RUB370; in remote Chukotka, where everything is flown in, RUB1,675, or 7.6 Big Hits.

Table 9. The borscht index: boom, bust and boom

Period	Borscht set	Source
2024 full year	Beef borscht set RUB90.5 per portion, +28%; chicken +31.6%	AKORT via Kommersant
Spring 2025	Potatoes +166.5% y/y, onions +87.2%, cabbage +56.8%, beets +11.9%	Rosstat via The Moscow Times
Dec 2025	Borscht set RUB205; Olivier salad for four RUB618 (Rosstat), +4% y/y	Rosstat; TASS
May 2026	Borscht set -24.8% y/y: potatoes -38.7%, cabbage -37.3%, onions -34.3%, beets -33.4%	Rusprodsoyuz via TASS
Jun 2026	Borscht set RUB320, +56% since December; Moscow RUB370; Chukotka RUB1,675	Rosstat via NeMoskva
Late Aug 2026	Potatoes and cabbage +35.3% y/y, onions +27.2%, beets +20.4%, carrots +17.7%	Rosstat via Kommersant

Methods differ: Rosstat national retail averages, retail-chain minimum prices (AKORT, Rusprodsoyuz) and producer prices are not strictly comparable.

Chart 6. The borscht vegetables went from falls of up to 39% in May to rises of up to 35% by late August.

What about China?

China has no single folk index to rival the borscht set, and we found no evidence of a recognised “jianbing index” or “malatang index”, despite the popularity of both street foods. What Chinese households, officials and economists actually watch is pork. Pork makes up about an eighth of the food basket and around 2.5% of headline CPI, and the “pig cycle” (zhu zhouqi) of overbreeding, price collapse, culling and shortage has driven food inflation for two decades, most violently after African swine fever wiped out much of the herd in 2018-19.

The latest numbers show how weak demand remains. In August 2026 headline CPI rose just 0.8% year on year, with pork down 11.8% while eggs rose 15%. The breeding-sow herd stood at 37.8mn head at the end of June, 6.5% smaller than a year earlier and close to the government’s 37.5mn benchmark, so traders expect hog prices to recover in the autumn.

For a real-time read on consumer sentiment, Chinese commentators have also used instant-noodle sales and the price of a cup of coffee. The “9.9 yuan coffee” war between Luckin and Cotti became a byword for consumption downgrade until both chains scaled back their discounts from February 1 this year under pressure from anti-monopoly regulators. In burger money, a Chinese Big Mac at CNY26.50 now costs about as much as two cups of discounted coffee.

Other ways to measure a currency

Table 10. The alternative indices

Index	What it measures	Latest
KFC index	Price of a KFC bucket in about 20 African countries, where McDonald’s is scarce	Sagaci Research; last edition found 2016: rand 48% undervalued
IKEA Billy index	Price of the same bookcase worldwide	September 2026: $57 in Japan, $79 in the US, $141 in Morocco
iPhone index	Apple’s price in dollars across about 50 countries	CommSec since 2007; see Table 7 for our 2026 update
Starbucks latte index	Price of a tall latte	April 2026 aggregator data: US $5.45, Switzerland $6.70, Brazil $2.12
Minutes of work	Working time on the average wage needed to buy a Big Mac	UBS, 2009: 12 minutes in Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo; over 2 hours in Nairobi. See Table 8
Borscht index	Cost of the Russian borscht vegetable set	See above

Is the Big Mac the right burger?

The Big Mac was chosen because it is the closest thing to an identical product sold almost everywhere. It is not a perfect yardstick, and its flaws explain most of our results. Most of what goes into a burger’s price is not beef and bread but rent, wages and local taxes, which are cheap in poor countries. That is why burgers cost less there, a pattern economists call the Balassa-Samuelson or Penn effect, and it means a cheap Big Mac does not by itself prove a currency is undervalued. The Economist has published a GDP-adjusted version of the index since 2011 to correct for this. On that measure the yuan is 24% undervalued rather than 37%, while the Turkish lira looks 39% overvalued rather than 11%.

Taxes and politics matter too. Russia’s Big Hit jumped from RUB165 to RUB180 overnight when VAT on restaurant food rose from 10% to 20% in October 2023, with no change in the ruble. McDonald’s positions itself as a premium brand in poor countries and a budget one in rich ones. And the burger simply is not available in Russia, Iran or Nigeria. A basket of staples, like the borscht set, measures real living costs better; a single burger measures them more memorably. Forty years on, that is still why the Big Mac wins.