KOSIS · Minimum wage · Gukbap
Minimum Wage and Gukbap
Compare how many minutes of minimum-wage work were needed for one bowl of gukbap and how the minimum wage changed year by year.
What can a minimum wage buy beyond gukbap? ↓As of 2026 · one 8,000 KRW bowl of gukbap takes 46.5 min
Question
How many minutes was one bowl of gukbap?
The gukbap price series extends the price table from the Brunch post for Jeontong Daerim Samgeori Meongjimak Sundaeguk. The March 2026 price uses the user-provided 8,000 won observation.
Work time needed for one bowl of gukbap
Gukbap price divided by the hourly minimum wage for each year. Lower values mean fewer work minutes were needed for one bowl.
Minimum wage trend
Shows the hourly minimum wage source value for each year.
Minimum wage growth
Shows year-over-year minimum-wage growth as bars.
Purchasing power
What can a minimum wage buy beyond gukbap?
One hour of minimum-wage pay. How much can it buy after accounting for overall, everyday and dining-out prices?
Only completed years with all four datasets are compared. Latest comparable year: 2025.
2019 → 2025 · Hourly minimum wage +20.1%
Overall prices
Purchasing power change
+2.5%Price change over this period +17.2%
Everyday prices
Purchasing power change
0.0%Price change over this period +20.1%
Dining out
Purchasing power change
-4.4%Price change over this period +25.7%
Gukbap
Purchasing power change
-14.2%Price change over this period +40.0%
From 2019 to 2025, the purchasing power of one hour of minimum-wage pay rose by 2.5% against overall prices. Against dining-out prices, it fell by 4.4%.
Purchasing power of one hour of pay · 2019 = 100
Above 100 buys more than in the start year; below 100 buys less. Use the legend to show or hide a series.
View annual values
| Year | Overall prices | Everyday prices | Dining out | Gukbap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| 2020 | 102.3 | 102.4 | 102.1 | 102.9 |
| 2021 | 101.3 | 100.7 | 100.8 | 104.4 |
| 2022 | 101.3 | 99.8 | 98.3 | 91.4 |
| 2023 | 102.7 | 100.9 | 97.4 | 82.3 |
| 2024 | 102.9 | 100.7 | 96.8 | 84.3 |
| 2025 | 102.5 | 100.0 | 95.6 | 85.8 |
Method and sources
Purchasing power index = (annual wage ÷ starting wage) ÷ (annual price ÷ starting price) × 100. The change in purchasing power is the final index minus 100.
Overall and everyday prices use the mean of all 12 monthly national KOSIS indices; dining out uses the annual national index. Years with missing months, nonpositive values or an unfinished calendar year are excluded. Gaps are not connected. Calculations use unrounded values and display one decimal place.
This measures gross hourly minimum-wage purchasing power. It does not measure actual income or living standards after working hours, taxes, benefits or household spending patterns. The everyday-items index covers frequently purchased or high-expenditure items; it is not specific to low-income households.
Gukbap prices come from one restaurant, Samgeori Meonjimak Sundaeguk in Daerim-dong. The previous price is carried forward between recorded changes. These are neither national averages nor exact annual averages.
Interpretation
How to read the gukbap work-time chart
The burden of one bowl is clearer when the price is read together with the same year's minimum wage.
This gukbap series is not an official national average; it is a specific restaurant's price table. Its advantage is that it gives actual KRW prices for a direct work-time calculation.
The level chart shows the long-term direction; the growth chart shows which years had faster changes.
Each year's gukbap price is divided by that year's hourly minimum wage. Multiplying by 60 converts the result to minutes.
Source: KOSIS · minimum wage · Brunch @buildingking/190 gukbap price table · March 2026 sundae-guk 8,000 KRW user observation