The Beer Index

How long do you need to work for one beer?

That's the only cost of living metric most people actually understand.

Economists overcomplicate everything. Indexes, models, baskets of goods. I've read the reports. None of them tell you what you actually want to know, which is whether you can afford to live somewhere without thinking about it.

A beer answers that faster than any economist ever will.

I figured this out traveling. Vietnam first. A beer at a convenience store costs 6,000 to 7,000 dong. In bulk, 5,000. At a bar, around 10,000 to 15,000. And the system is efficient. You don't order beers one by one in Vietnam. You order a crate. Twenty-four bottles. They bring it to the table. You drink what you want and they charge you for what's gone. The rest stays in the fridge for next time, or for the next group. No waste, no friction, no upselling.

The price of that beer captures everything. Production, logistics, rent on the building, the staff's wages, the taxes, the margin. Especially in a bar. A beer in a bar is a compressed version of the entire local economy in a single transaction.

Once you see this, you can't unsee it.

Compare a few cities, ranked by software engineer salary because that's what I know and that's the lens I had while traveling. In Vietnam, a developer makes around 15 million dong a month, rent runs around 5 million, and a bar beer is 10,000. In Japan, the same role makes around 500,000 yen, rent is 100,000 to 200,000, and a bar beer is 350 to 500 yen, but you can get one out of a convenience store for 120 to 180 yen. In Toronto, the gross salary is around $90,000 a year (about $5,500 net a month after Canadian tax), rent on a one-bedroom is about $2,000 a month, and a bar beer runs $9 to $15. In France, the dev salary is around €3,500 net, rent is around €750, and a beer in a bar is €3.50 during happy hour, which in France lasts from 4 PM to midnight.

Different currencies. Different cultures. Doesn't matter. The ratio is what matters.

How many beers does your monthly salary buy? How many beers does it buy after rent comes out? How long do you have to work to afford one drink at a bar after a long week? That's the real measure of a city.

Take Toronto. Average dev salary is around $90,000 gross, which is roughly $5,500 net after Canadian tax. Rent eats $2,000 of that. So you have $3,500 left. At $12 a beer at a bar, that's about 291 beers a month of disposable income. Sounds like a lot until you also have transit, groceries, utilities, and the fact that you'd like to do other things with your life. Now take Vietnam. 15 million dong a month, minus 5 million for rent, leaves 10 million. At 10,000 dong a bar beer, that's 1,000 beers. Three times Toronto's number, and no winter coats to buy.

That's the index. Not absolute purchasing power. The relationship between what you make, what you spend on shelter, and what's left over to enjoy.

Now Paris. €3,500 net, minus €750 rent, leaves €2,750. At €3.50 a happy hour beer, that's 785 beers. Paris on a developer salary is, by this metric, the best deal in the developed world. Tokyo with convenience store beer prices at 120 yen comes close. Toronto is a trap. New York is worse.

A beer also tells you something the salary numbers don't. It tells you about the culture.

In Japan, beer is cheap in convenience stores because people drink outside. You buy a beer at the 7-Eleven, sit on a bench in a park or on the curb outside the station, and that's a normal evening. In France, beer is a social ritual. You sit at a café terrace for two hours, you nurse one beer, and the price reflects the time and the space the bar is renting to you. In Vietnam, drinking is communal. You're not paying for an experience, you're sharing a crate of cheap beer with friends on plastic chairs.

The beer doesn't lie. It just shows you what the city actually values.

So that's the index. The article isn't really about beer.

It's about the fact that you don't need economists to tell you whether to take a job somewhere. You don't need a cost-of-living calculator. You don't need to read a single quarterly report from the IMF.

You just need to know the price of a beer at the cheapest bar in town, the price of one at the corner store, the median salary for what you do, and the rent on a one-bedroom in a normal neighborhood. Run the ratios. The number is the truth.

Life isn't measured in currency. It's measured in what you can consume without thinking about it.

If your salary buys fewer beers than someone in another city, you're not richer. You're just paying more to exist.

Here's the live version. Search a city, filter by region, switch between bar beer and store beer to see which cities are actually a deal.

Find the cheapest beer in town and the rent in a normal neighbourhood, not a rough area, not a luxury tower. Median salary for whatever you do. Run the ratios yourself.

Let's see where it actually pays to live.