The geographic spread dossier · PW-IDX-MINIMUM-WAGE
What the minimum wage is, country by country.
Monthly gross minimum wage across 20 countries, normalized to USD. The same legal floor reads very differently depending on where you stand — this dossier records the full range. Every figure is a dated reading from 2026-01-01, not a live quote.
- Subject
- Minimum Wage Index · Monthly gross minimum wage
- The spread
- What the same item costs where it is cheapest vs. priciest, and the multiple between them.
- Normalization
- Local prices converted to USD at a dated FX rate (2026-03-01).
- Tier
- Source-backed (read at the source, dated), not a live feed.
Figures are recorded readings from ILO / Government Sources, normalized to USD at a dated FX rate and dated 2026-01-01 — not a live feed, not monitored, not promised-current. Prices move with currencies and local markets; treat this as a dated snapshot, not financial advice.
The three figures that frame it
The lowest, the middle, and the highest monthly minimum wage on file — the floor a worker stands on, country by country.
- Lowest on file $51.00 🇳🇬 Nigeria Lowest floor
- Median $1217.00 🇯🇵 Japan Middle of 20
- Highest on file $5384.00 🇨🇭 Switzerland Highest floor
Section · The country ledger
Every country on file, read the same way
Each country is entered with its local price, the USD-normalized reading. The lowest row is shaded; the highest is marked. Click a column to re-sort.
| Rank | Country | Local price | USD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nigeria · lowest | NGN 70,000 | $51.00 |
| 2 | India | INR 5,340 | $57.00 |
| 3 | Egypt | EGP 7,000 | $133.00 |
| 4 | Argentina | ARS 352,400 | $256.00 |
| 5 | Philippines | PHP 18,070 | $300.00 |
| 6 | Brazil | BRL 1,621 | $310.00 |
| 7 | Thailand | THB 10,400 | $317.00 |
| 8 | Indonesia | IDR 5,729,876 | $339.00 |
| 9 | Mexico | MXN 9,582 | $539.00 |
| 10 | Turkey | TRY 28,075 | $632.00 |
| 11 | Japan | JPY 194,000 | $1217.00 |
| 12 | Singapore | SGD 1,600 | $1248.00 |
| 13 | United States | USD 1,257 | $1257.00 |
| 14 | Poland | PLN 4,806 | $1300.00 |
| 15 | South Korea | KRW 2,156,880 | $1433.00 |
| 16 | Canada | CAD 3,143 | $2274.00 |
| 17 | United Kingdom | GBP 2,083 | $2773.00 |
| 18 | Germany | EUR 2,408 | $2786.00 |
| 19 | Australia | AUD 4,104 | $2854.00 |
| 20 | Switzerland · highest | CHF 4,262 | $5384.00 |
Local prices are converted to USD at the recorded FX rate (2026-03-01). A country with no reading on file is listed but not ranked.
Section · How this file is built
Method & provenance
One recorded reading
Figures come from ILO / Government Sources, read for this index and dated 2026-01-01. It is a point-in-time reading held as a dated reference, not a live feed.
Normalized to USD
Local prices are converted to USD at a dated FX rate (2026-03-01) so countries are comparable. Currency moves after that date are not reflected.
A floor, not a price
Minimum wage is the legal monthly floor, normalized to USD. A higher figure is the better outcome, so the range is recorded as context — never flagged as an alert.
Not advice
Prices move with currencies and local markets. Treat this as a dated snapshot for comparison, not financial advice or a guide to arbitrage across borders.
Prices and the as-read date are real values from the PriceWorld indexes dataset, read 2026-01-01 from ILO / Government Sources. Nothing here is presented as live, monitored, or promised-current. Confirm the current figure with the source before relying on it.