Northern Ireland

Data analyst reveals how ‘beer money’ for average earners has plunged since the 1970s

The amount of beer, Big Macs and Freddos an average wage can purchase has fallen dramatically in recent decades

Drinking lots of alcohol will counteract the benefits you get from food
The ability of average earners in the UK to buy luxury items like beer has dropped considerably since the 1970s. (Alamy Stock Photo)
By Allan Preston

ANYONE that has bought a round of drinks lately can be forgiven for looking away as they tap their debit cards.

Pints of Guinness in Belfast city centre now cost around £6.40, but that’s not the worst of it according to the data analyst and accountant Peter Donaghy.

“I was wondering how many pints of lager you could buy with median incomes since the 1970s,” he posted on social media.

“A typical UK full-time employee earned 243 pints per week in 1975; this has now fallen by around a third, to 159 pints per week.”

That’s a sobering drop of the ability to buy 34 pints a day to 22 and reflects how alcohol price inflation has outstripped wage growth in recent decades.

Among those responding to Mr Donaghy’s findings was the former DUP special adviser, Lee Reynolds, who called it, perhaps tongue in cheek, the “decline and fall of western civilization”.

For those who switch off at reports about interest rates and inflation, Mr Donaghy (known to many as the Salmon of Data) continued to show his talent for explaining the economy in ‘bitesize’ nuggets.

For Big Macs, he said the ability of the average male employee to buy as many as possible peaked in 2007, declining since then by around 30% - meaning the average male employee is paid “181 Big Macs per week.”

Data analyst Peter 'the Salmon of data' Donaghy has estimated that wages and the ability to buy Big Macs has decreased by 30% since 2007.
Data analyst Peter 'the Salmon of data' Donaghy has estimated that wages and the ability to buy Big Macs has decreased by 30% since 2007.

For another metric, he selected the cost of Dairy Milk’s Freddo bars.

In 2006, he stated that the average male employee in the UK earned “4,890 Freddos per week,”but this his had roughly halved to just 2,417 Freddos per week in 2023.

Data analyst Peter 'the Salmon of Data' Donaghy has estimated that the average UK earner's ability to buy Freddo bars has halved from 2006 to 2023.
Data analyst Peter 'the Salmon of Data' Donaghy has estimated that the average UK earner's ability to buy Freddo bars has halved from 2006 to 2023.

While finding a less-depressing way of illustrating the cost-of-living crisis, Mr Donaghy’s figures still act as a reminder that household incomes have been steadily squeezed for decades.

Earlier this month the Northern Ireland Consumer Council calculated that the lowest-earning households were left with just £41.73 a week on average after paying their essential bills.

This amounts to 7% less than other UK regions and a drop of more than 35% since the first quarter of 2021.