Beer per Hour: How Many Beer Could You Buy for an Hour of Minimum Wage Work? A Fixed Visualization by State

Number of Beers

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The above based on a post from reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful. Despite reaching the top of the subreddit, it was quick to see the author had made some kind of mistake with the data, and the numbers were inaccurate.

Still, we thought it was an interesting way to compare the cost of living to the minimum wage on a state level. We tend to get a little more granular on this site, but cost of beer isn't exactly a Census standard.

Like the original visualization, cost data comes from https://www.simplethriftyliving.com/beer-drinker-this-is-how-much-a-case-of-beer-will-cost-your-state/ and minimum wage comes from https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/minimum-wage-by-state/. We used the 2021 value, unless the federal standard of $7.25/hr was higher, because employers may not pay below the federal standard. We can't vouch for the quality of the data collected by Simply Thrift Living, but if it's to be trusted it's clearly for bargain-brand beer.

So what really makes the difference here? Well, tax on alcohol sales is obviously huge, and mimimum wage can make a huge difference obviously. The best places for minimum-wage-earning-beer-drinking Americans would be Washington DC, New York, Connecticut, California, and Arizon. The worst places would be Wyoming, Tennessee, Alaska, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

The data is below if you'd like to double-check on us.