In the UK the minimum wage at McDonalds is the national minimum wage £10.42/hr and the cost of a Big Mac is £3.19. So someone on that wage could buy 3.27 Big Mac burgers by working one hour. In the US the current minimum according to payscale.com is $8.47, but I will go with the average they report of $11.19/hr and the cost of a Big Mac is $5.81. So someone on that wage could buy 1.93 Big Mac burgers by working one hour.
To recap the wage for 1 hour to burgers ratio is as follows today:
- UK: 3.27
- USA: 1.93
The UK worker can buy 1.69 times as many burgers for the same time worked.
Note that I was very generous in this. From the UK I picked minimum wage, for the US I picked average McDonalds wage.
Edit: A correction. The minimum wage becomes £10.42/hr in April, it is currently £9.50. This means the ratio for the next few of months is 2.98 rather than 3.27, which is still better than the US average of 1.93.
Edit 2: Some smartarse brought up that the minimum wage mentioned is the adult rate not one of the rates for younger people. I thought I was already being generous comparing the minimum wage in the UK to the average wage paid by McDonalds in the US, but nooo, that is not good enough for some people. Screw em, if they want to figure out the ratios they can do it themselves.