What is this "pancake index" on purchasing power?

How many crepes can the French afford to prepare today? This is the question that the “Pancake index”, a study carried out by the network of European journalists Correctiv, attempts to answer. Europe, in which Le Parisien participated.

By comparing the price of flour, milk, eggs and butter in 28 countries, its authors wanted to concretely measure the evolution of purchasing power over the last ten years. The calculation is based on 5% of median daily disposable income. In France, this sum makes it possible to cook 11.13 pancakes in 2026, compared to 12.35 in 2016.

That's a drop of 9.9%. Deep inequalities To understand this rout, we must look at inflation. The price of the four ingredients needed to make crepes has increased by 39.3% in ten years, while income has only increased by 25.7%.

France is, however, not an isolated case. Purchasing power for pancakes also fell by 16.8% in Germany and 16.1% in Denmark. Conversely, Austria and Ireland saw their “pancake index” increase.

Behind this national average, the differences are significant. In France, the wealthiest 20% can prepare 24.83 pancakes with the amount retained for the study, compared to only 5.25 for the lowest 20%. The former thus have a purchasing capacity 4.7 times greater than that of the latter, compared to 4.3 times ten years earlier.

The poorest households are particularly exposed to rising food prices, since these expenses weigh more heavily on their budgets.

Machine-translated from French