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I was out recently with some friends in a night club in down town Ikeja. It was a boys hangout and as we typically do on such occasions, ended up drinking a lot of vodka, brandy, soft drinks, water and off-course beer. When it was time to pay up our bill was a nicely sum of about N100k. Nicely because we were over 10 guys with half of us surely within “the above N5m per year” earning bracket. The beer bill came to about N39,000, vodka and Hennessy N45,000 and the rest on water and soft & energy drinks etc. Like i said this was a usual norm and nothing special, thats until I read a reuters article that said “an average african had to work three hours on average to afford a beer, compared to 12minutes for a European”!!!! Three hours!!!! Wow.
So, I decided to put that to put it to test, to find out if it is really true. To do that within my resources means I will have to stick to Nigeria and off-course make some assumptions. Here they are?
Average Cost of Beer (Retail Price) – N200
Hours Worked Per day – 8.30-5.30 (9hrs)
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Working days a month – 20days
Minimum Wage – N18,000 a month (without deducting tax, pensions etc)
The Result
| SALARY PER YEAR | SALARY PER MONTH | SALARY PER DAY | WORKING HOURS/DAY | SALARY/HOUR | AVERAGE COST OF BEER | NO OF HOURS | NO OF MINUTES |
| N | N | N | |||||
| 216,000 | 18,000 | 900 | 9 | 100 | 200 | 2.00 | 120.00 |
| 500,000 | 41,667 | 2,083 | 9 | 231 | 200 | 0.86 | 51.84 |
| 1,000,000 | 83,333 | 4,167 | 9 | 463 | 200 | 0.43 | 25.92 |
| 2,000,000 | 166,667 | 8,333 | 9 | 926 | 200 | 0.22 | 12.96 |
| 3,000,000 | 250,000 | 12,500 | 9 | 1,389 | 200 | 0.14 | 8.64 |
| 5,000,000 | 416,667 | 20,833 | 9 | 2,315 | 200 | 0.09 | 5.18 |
| 7,000,000 | 583,333 | 29,167 | 9 | 3,241 | 200 | 0.06 | 3.70 |
| 10,000,000 | 833,333 | 41,667 | 9 | 4,630 | 200 | 0.04 | 2.59 |
So there you have it. It will take just 2 hours of work for an average Nigerian on a minimum wage to afford a bottle of beer. What about you? How many hours do you need to work to afford a bottle of beer?? Oh well, you probably are within the minutes category right?. What if the beer was purchased in club like we did? How would you fare? Well, here it is;
Average Cost of Beer (Bar/Club Price) – N700
Hours Worked Per day – 8.30-5.30 (9hrs)
Working days a month – 20days
Minimum Wage – N18,000 a month (without deducting tax, pensions etc)
Result
| SALARY PER YEAR | SALARY PER MONTH | SALARY PER DAY | WORKING HOURS/DAY | SALARY/HOUR | AVERAGE COST OF BEER | NO OF HOURS | NO OF MINUTES |
| N | N | N | |||||
| 216,000 | 18,000 | 900 | 9 | 100 | 700 | 7.00 | 420.00 |
| 500,000 | 41,667 | 2,083 | 9 | 231 | 700 | 3.02 | 181.44 |
| 1,000,000 | 83,333 | 4,167 | 9 | 463 | 700 | 1.51 | 90.72 |
| 2,000,000 | 166,667 | 8,333 | 9 | 926 | 700 | 0.76 | 45.36 |
| 3,000,000 | 250,000 | 12,500 | 9 | 1,389 | 700 | 0.50 | 30.24 |
| 5,000,000 | 416,667 | 20,833 | 9 | 2,315 | 700 | 0.30 | 18.14 |
| 7,000,000 | 583,333 | 29,167 | 9 | 3,241 | 700 | 0.22 | 12.96 |
| 10,000,000 | 833,333 | 41,667 | 9 | 4,630 | 700 | 0.15 | 9.07 |
How did you fare now? Minutes or hours? Let’s make it classier and add premium liquor like vodka, brandy, whisky? Lets go
Average Cost of Premium Liquor (Bar/Club Price) – N10,000
Hours Worked Per day – 8.30-5.30 (9hrs)
Working days a month – 20days
Minimum Wage – N18,000 a month (without deducting tax, pensions etc)
| SALARY PER YEAR | SALARY PER MONTH | SALARY PER DAY | WORKING HOURS/DAY | SALARY/HOUR | AVERAGE COST OF PREMIUM LIQUOR | NO OF HOURS | NO OF MINUTES |
| N | N | N | |||||
| 216,000 | 18,000 | 900 | 9 | 100 | 10,000 | 100.00 | 6,000.00 |
| 500,000 | 41,667 | 2,083 | 9 | 231 | 10,000 | 43.20 | 2,592.00 |
| 1,000,000 | 83,333 | 4,167 | 9 | 463 | 10,000 | 21.60 | 1,296.00 |
| 2,000,000 | 166,667 | 8,333 | 9 | 926 | 10,000 | 10.80 | 648.00 |
| 3,000,000 | 250,000 | 12,500 | 9 | 1,389 | 10,000 | 7.20 | 432.00 |
| 5,000,000 | 416,667 | 20,833 | 9 | 2,315 | 10,000 | 4.32 | 259.20 |
| 7,000,000 | 583,333 | 29,167 | 9 | 3,241 | 10,000 | 3.09 | 185.14 |
| 10,000,000 | 833,333 | 41,667 | 9 | 4,630 | 10,000 | 2.16 | 129.60 |
From the above, its pretty clear that for an average minimum wage earner or indeed a corper you will need to work 100hours just to afford a bottle of premium liquor in a club. For an average white collar guy earning N3m you will need to work 7hours a day.
Whilst we do not work hourly in Nigeria, this analysis is quite instructive as a bottle of beer/liquor in a bar can be finished within an hour depending on who is drinking and who is paying. Juxtaposing that with how much you need to work to earn that gives you a different perspective. Agreed you can simple divide the liquor cost by your salary to get a percentage but an estimate an hour becomes useful if that same time can be used more productively.
This article originally appeared in Nairametrics on 18th June 2012.
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interesting analysis