[mickeymounds]

Author here. fair critique. We should have led with the basket and methods in plain text. Here they are:

What “basic needs” means in our chart (single adult, new lease):

Housing: market-rate 1-bedroom rent (current new-lease median, not legacy/regulated rents).

Utilities: basic electricity + heating/cooling + water/sewer/trash for a small 1-BR.

Food: ~2,100–2,400 kcal/day from low-cost local staples (grains/pasta, legumes, eggs, veg/fruit, oil, dairy/chicken) — no brand premiums.

Transport: one local monthly public-transit pass (or closest equivalent).

Everyday basics: SIM/phone plan and hygiene/cleaning essentials. Excluded: healthcare/tuition/childcare, cars, entertainment. Wages: net typical/median pay (after tax/mandatory contributions). Metric: hours needed = basket price ÷ net hourly pay. It’s a cash-flow affordability ratio for a solo renter, not a welfare/quality-of-life score.

On citations & data: Sources are standard (national stats/OECD/Eurostat + operator fares + rental medians from official or broad listing datasets). If you have a better official series for any country (especially rent), point me to it and I’ll rerun that row and note the change.

On the visuals/formatting: Point taken. I can collapse the UI to just the number + rank and move the methods into a single, clean appendix. Ads fund the data work, but I’ll provide an ad-light reader version for this piece.

If something still looks off for your country, share the wage/rent series you trust and I’ll check it.