• MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 hours ago

    An I dumb or is this the sort of thing that is explained away with an exchange rate? How long would an average Chinese worker have to work to earn 4.9 RMB?

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      8 hours ago

      The average annual earnings in China is $16,300

      If you normalise this against the US which is $47,960

      This is roughly 3x

      So multiply the price of that beer by 3 and I think you have a fair rough comparison. Any beer that costs 2 dollars for 1.5L? Probably not.

      China’s grocery basket is cheaper than the US.

    • Beaver [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 hours ago

      My back-of-the-envelope math says it somewhere around 30 minutes of minimum wage (minimum, most are making more than that). A shitty 40 of beer in the USA can be as cheap as $3, which is also around 30 minutes of minimum wage (but most people are making more than that). That’s still a little less than 1.5L, but it’s as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as you can get.

      This does demonstrate the vast difference in PPP between US and Chinese goods. Beer is definitely part of the “basket of goods” that you can get for a much cheaper price in China.