Work Hours to Afford Essentials: Best and Worst Countries

Published on October 16, 2025 | Prices Last Reviewed for Freshness: November 2025
Written by Alec Pow - Economic & Pricing Investigator | Content Reviewed by CFA Alexander Popinker

Educational content; not financial advice. Prices are estimates; confirm current rates, fees, taxes, and terms with providers or official sources.

Which Countries make you work the least (and the most) to cover basic needs? And where does the U.S. stand?

Plain-English promise: We priced the same monthly starter basket everywhere, rent for a modest apartment, utilities (electricity + gas), basic groceries, getting around, and everyday essentials, then ranked countries by how many hours a typical worker must work to pay for it. We highlight where you need the least and the most hours—and exactly where the U.S. sits in between. Lower hours = better.

We call this the Work-to-Essentials Index (WTEI).

At a glance

• Fewest hours (sample): Bolivia 80, Nicaragua 81, Romania 84, Turkey 90, Zambia 106.
• Most hours (sample): Antigua & Barbuda 219, Portugal 219, Ghana 211, Finland 205, Sweden 203.
• United States: 140 hours/month (≈17.5 workdays). Rank: #11/42 in our main table; #5/38 in the OECD slice.

Metric: hours of pay a single adult on a new lease needs for rent + basic utilities + staple groceries + local transit.

What WTEI measures (and what those hours actually mean)

We hold the basket constant to keep the comparison fair. Then two forces decide your place in the ranking:

• Prices in your country for each component of the basket (via the World Bank’s ICP 2021 price parities).
• Your country’s typical take-home hourly pay (OECD net pay where available; otherwise a clearly flagged ILOSTAT gross proxy).

WTEI is simply basket cost ÷ hourly pay → hours per month. It’s the most intuitive unit we could think of: how much of your month disappears just to stand still.

Interpretation guide: ≤130 h/mo feels livable. >150 h/mo starts to bite. ~200+ h/mo means most of your work month goes to rent, lights, groceries, and getting around.

The U.S. Data, Explained

140.0 hours/month (≈ 17.5 workdays). That puts the U.S. better than ~74% of countries in our publishable set, but #11 of 42 globally—not a podium finish. Why does the U.S. not look terrible even with high rents? Because WTEI is time, and time is shaped by the denominator. Net hourly pay in the U.S. is high. When pay is strong, it offsets part of a pricey basket. That’s why countries with cheaper prices can still rank worse if typical take-home pay is too low. Two more anchors make the U.S. position easy to grasp:

• Neighbor check: the U.S. sits between Slovenia (~134.8 h) and Austria (~141.1 h), close peers in the table.
• OECD check: compared with the OECD median (~192.9 h), the U.S. advantage is equivalent to +$10.94/hour more pay or a –27.4% cheaper basket (holding the other lever fixed). That’s the size of the gap you’d need to erase to be “average” among rich countries.

And a fair nuance: our default hourly pay uses a flat 2,080 h/yr. Many European economies work fewer hours per year; switching to actual hours lifts their hourly pay and lowers their WTEI (we find roughly a ~16% drop in a sensitivity). That change nudges the U.S. down a few places in the OECD slice. We can publish both versions for transparency.

Fewest hours: What’s Going Right

Bolivia (~80 h) and Nicaragua (~81 h) are the purest illustration of how WTEI works. Their baskets are cheap in time terms because the big, non-negotiable costs, rent and utilities, are low compared with the U.S., and typical pay isn’t so low that it erases those gains. In practice, that means roughly ten workdays fund the basics each month—leaving more calendar for everything else.

Romania (~84 h) is the EU surprise. It marries EU-level infrastructure with lower housing and utilities price levels than Western Europe. Pay has climbed enough in recent years that, when you divide that same basket by take-home hourly pay, you land in the global top tier. This is what “time-to-afford” picks up that price charts miss.

Turkey (~90 h) and Zambia (~106 h) show two different paths to a similar outcome. In one case, component prices are low relative to income; in the other, the mix of prices (especially housing/utilities) is favorable enough that a typical paycheck stretches far in time.

More hours: what’s getting in the way

Antigua & Barbuda (~219 h) is Island Economics 101: food and transport carry import and distance premiums; wages don’t fully keep pace. Stack those costs onto even a modest rent and you pass 200 hours (most of the month) just to buy the basics.

Portugal (~219 h) defies the “cheap rent fixes everything” myth. Even if rent isn’t off the charts, food and transport relative to take-home pay can push a country into the time-heavy zone. That’s the denominator at work: when net hourly pay is on the lower side for the OECD, you need more time to fund the same basket.

Ghana (~211 h) brings the point home from the other direction. If food and transport sit near U.S. price parity, but pay is low, hours explode—even when rent itself looks cheap. In WTEI terms, it’s the combination that matters.

Finland (~205 h) and Sweden (~203 h) remind us: rich ≠ automatic winner. When everyday prices outpace net take-home pay, you can land above 200 hours even in high-income settings. (Again, using actual annual hours would improve part of Europe’s standing; we’ll show that variant in the repo.)

(For out-of-window cases that would distort the scale, see Extremes below.)

Extremes that would blow up the chart

To keep the hero visual readable, we cap the display at 80–220 hours/month. Several OECD countries sit above that window. They’re real, they’re in our OECD CSV, and they’re listed here so reporters and readers can see the full picture.

Biggest out-of-window number: Mexico (323.2 h). Next: Israel (288.8 h).

Why these hours are so high (quick read)

• Mexico (~323 h). WTEI rises when typical net hourly pay is modest relative to the essentials basket. Mexico’s OECD-net series yields a high time cost even before any housing or transport frictions you feel on the ground. We list it here rather than squeeze the main chart’s scale.
• Israel (~289 h). High take-home pay coexists with high housing/services price levels. In time terms, the price side wins—pushing the WTEI outside our readability window.
• Japan, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Slovakia, Estonia. Each mixes different drivers, but the mechanics are the same: if typical net hourly pay is not strong enough versus the price level of rent/food/transport, WTEI climbs. Our fix is transparency: show them here and in the OECD CSV, keep the hero legible.

Popular countries with incomplete/non-comparable pay data (directional only)

These economies draw a lot of attention, but we don’t yet have a publishable, comparable typical net hourly pay + actual hours series. We place them directionally using price levels and official wage signals. They do not affect the headline rank. Where our Extended (gross-basis) file has a number, we show it in parentheses as non-comparable context.

• China — likely middle. (No Extended figure yet in our file.)
• India — likely upper. Extended gross-basis: ~349.5 h (directional; not comparable to Gold).
• Russian Federation — likely middle. (No Extended figure yet in our file.)
• Qatar — middle, wide dispersion by worker type. (No Extended figure yet.)
• United Arab Emirates — middle, wide dispersion by worker type. (No Extended figure yet.)
• Singapore — middle-to-better. Extended gross-basis: ~1,357.8 h (directional; not comparable to Gold; housing-heavy).
• Hong Kong SAR — middle-to-better. (No Extended figure yet.)
• Taiwan — middle-to-better. (No Extended figure yet.)
• Saudi Arabia — middle-to-better, segmented market. (No Extended figure yet.)
• Ukraine — middle-high on pre-war baselines. Extended gross-basis: ~4,281.0 h (non-comparable; reflects extremely low hourly pay series in file).
• North Korea — not placed (no ICP coverage; no comparable wage/price framework).

Reminder. “Directional” means we steer by price levels and wage signals but hold these economies out of the Gold rank until we can publish a consistent typical net hourly and actual hours worked series. Numbers shown from Extended are gross-basis and not comparable to Gold.

How many days you win, or lose, each month

Hours are really days of your life (divide by 8). So compared with the global median (~166.3 h):

• Bolivia (~80 h) buys back roughly 11 weekdays every month.
• United States (140.0 h) buys back about 3⅓ weekdays each month.
• Portugal (~219 h) loses roughly 6½ weekdays each month.
• Ghana (~211 h) loses roughly 5½ weekdays each month.

That’s the real currency WTEI tracks: time you don’t get back.

“What would it take” to move up

Pick a target and show the lever.

• To crack the global Top-10 (≈ 134.8 h): the U.S. (140.0 h) needs roughly a +3.9% pay increase or a –3.7% basket cut. That’s your “distance to elite.”
• To return to the median (~166.3 h): Portugal (~219 h) needs about a +31.7% pay lift or a –24.1% basket reduction; Ghana (~211 h) needs roughly +26.9% pay or –21.2% prices. These are large shifts—explaining why everyday life there feels time-tight.

Use this to talk policy with precision: is your country’s problem expensive essentials (attack rent, transport, food logistics), take-home pay (tax thresholds, credits), or both?

Continent math

North America (incl. Central America & Caribbean). A split screen: Nicaragua (~81 h) is a global winner; the United States (140 h) sits in the “better” tier; Canada (~175 h) needs more time; Antigua & Barbuda (~219 h) shows the island penalty; Mexico (~323 h, OECD-only) is an outlier on the hard side.

South America. Bolivia (~80 h) is a beast; Chile (~200+ h) lands time-heavy, illustrating how transport and food can dominate when wages lag.

Europe. It’s a range: Romania (~84 h) near the top of the world; Slovenia (~135 h) better than the U.S.; Portugal (~219 h), Finland (~205 h), Sweden (~203 h) on the tough side. Switching to actual national hours makes many EU countries look better; we’ll publish that sensitivity.

Africa. Not one story. Zambia (~106 h) is genuinely time-light—beats plenty of rich economies. Ghana (~211 h) shows how food/transport near U.S. parity plus low pay can eat the month even when rent is cheap. Asia & Oceania. Turkey (~90 h) is among the quickest-to-afford in the OECD-adjacent set; Malaysia sits middle-low; South Korea is middle; Australia (~200 h) and New Zealand are often rent-led, pushing hours up.

Remote-worker (nomad) lens

Hold the denominator fixed at U.S. net hourly pay and ask: where is the basket cheapest? That yields a very different map—one that’s useful for remote workers and teams deciding where time goes furthest.

Note: This isn’t about visas or culture; it’s a time calculation for the essentials only.

What eats your time

Every country’s hours decompose into five pieces of the basket. Two fingerprints dominate:

• Rent-led: common in richer economies; housing is the time sink. When supply or zoning constrains modest units, WTEI rises even if wages are high.
• Food/transport-led: common in lower-income settings; groceries and getting around dominate. Logistics, imports, and fuel can overwhelm gains from cheap rent.

This is why national conversations that fixate on a single villain (“it’s all rent” or “it’s all wages”) miss the point. WTEI shows where the bottleneck actually is.

Method & caveats (one minute, no jargon)

• Basket: fixed starter basket (rent, utilities, food, transport, other) for comparability.
• Prices: ICP 2021 price parities by component translate the U.S. basket into each country’s prices. See also the ICP data hub for PLIs and PPPs: ICP data.
• Pay: typical hourly — OECD net (gold) where available; ILOSTAT gross proxy elsewhere (clearly flagged).
• Unit: hours per month (WTEI). Press window: we visualize 80–220 h for clean charts; the full extended table is downloadable.
• Hero visuals use an 80–220 h press window for legibility; OECD countries outside this range are shown in the Extremes box and in the OECD download.
• Transparency: Where a component PLI (e.g., rent or utilities) was missing, we filled from the appropriate ICP aggregate and flagged it in the data so nothing is hidden.
• Sensitivity: Using actual paid hours/year (e.g., shorter Nordic work years) lowers hours vs using a flat 2,080. Shared housing/legacy rents also reduce hours per person vs our solo new-lease baseline.

Full table — publishable set (all countries)

Main table shows the publishable range (80–220 h). “OECD extremes” are listed for completeness and use the same method; they were excluded from the hero visual only for legibility.

Data & downloads

• Global (ascending): wtei_publishable_ascending.csv built from World Bank ICP 2021 price parities (component PLIs for housing, utilities, food-at-home, local transit) plus typical net hourly pay where available: OECD Taxing Wages (OECD countries) and ILOSTAT (gross proxy, clearly flagged, for others).
  Hours = basket ÷ net hourly pay. Retrieved Oct 17, 2025.
• OECD (net-pay, full range): wtei_oecd_2025.csv constructed from OECD Taxing Wages (net take-home pay), priced with ICP 2021 component parities; hourly pay derived from official hourly series or adjusted using OECD “Hours actually worked” where published. Retrieved Oct 17, 2025.
• Extended (gross-basis): wtei_extended_2025.csv same basket priced via ICP 2021; wages from ILOSTAT gross series (directional proxy when net pay is unavailable), so figures are not directly comparable to the OECD net-pay slice. Retrieved Oct 17, 2025.
• Nomad Top-15 · Nomad Bottom-15 same ICP-priced basket; denominator fixed to U.S. net hourly pay (OECD Taxing Wages) to show where a U.S. remote worker’s time stretches furthest. Retrieved Oct 17, 2025.

Related research (method, not the article)

The Monthly Survival Hours (MSH) paper underpins the component approach behind WTEI. It’s a separate, methods-first contribution—An Addition if you discuss methodology: Pow, A., & Stonden, L. (2025). Affordability in Hours… SocArXiv. DOI 10.31235/osf.io/ztbx2

Every 8 hours here is one day of your life. Live in a winner and you buy back long weekends every month. Live in a struggler and the weekdays vanish into rent, lights, food, and the bus. That’s what the Work-to-Essentials Index measures: how much of your life the basics cost.