I just took a quick look at the site for the grocery store near me in big-city-California-USA: I can get 3-and-a-bit pounds of non-frozen chicken breast for $9.

I just took a quick look at the site for the grocery store near me in big-city-California-USA: I can get 3-and-a-bit pounds of non-frozen chicken breast for $9.50 right now (2.99/lb). Often frozen is a bit cheaper. Looks like this is equivalent to 4.66nzd/0.45kg or $10.35NZD/kg, so if that "NZD$16-17/kg" is a NZ price, it's over 50% higher than that. CA minimum wage is $15.50/hr, so that would get me almost 2.36kg of chicken breast an hour. NZ minimum wage appears to be 21.2NZD/hr, which would get me 2kg of chicken at US prices; and just 1.3ish at that 16-17 price point. EDIT: Of course, not all of the US has CA's minimum wage. But the wealthy parts of the US are certainly quite wealthy globally, with still-low-globally prices for many things.