Wednesday, December 10, 2008

What is the going rate for flipping burgers?

In the current edition of Princeton Weekly, there is an article about Professor Orley Ashenfelter, from the Department of Economics and Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University. When faced with the question as to whether China’s and India’s growing economies will soon rival that of the United States, Ashenfelter poses the question: "What is the going rate for flipping burgers?"

He is conducting a study of McDonald’s employees’ wages in many countries to illustrate the relative strength of their economies, and early results indicate that developing nations still have a long climb. While the average hourly “McWage” is around $6 in the United States and other western nations, the same job in China, India and other developing countries pays less than 50 cents.

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