When a Latte in Beirut Costs More Than Manhattan

During my time in New York, I bought a latte for $5.99.

In some premium cafés in Saifi, Beirut, I have seen a similar latte priced at $7.99.

Of course, one cup of coffee isn't a complete cost of living comparison. New York remains significantly more expensive in areas such as housing, healthcare and insurance.

But that latte exposed something deeply troubling.

Some premium venues in Beirut are reaching New York prices without offering anything close to New York wages, infrastructure or public services.

Beirut Prices Without New York Wages

The real problem isn't simply the price of the coffee. It's the relationship between that price and what the average person earns.

New York has its own serious affordability crisis. However, its economy offers access to wages, employment opportunities, capital, infrastructure and a public transportation network that Lebanon can't currently match.

Lebanese consumers are being asked to pay international prices while earning local salaries and privately financing services that should normally be provided through public infrastructure.

This is what makes Beirut’s cost of living particularly difficult.

The city isn't becoming expensive because Lebanon is becoming wealthier or more productive. It's becoming expensive because inefficiency, instability and institutional failure are being added to almost everything we purchase. The World Bank’s Lebanon Economic Monitor, Spring 2025 edition provides broader context on the country’s prolonged economic crisis.

Why the Cost of Doing Business in Lebanon Is So High

Lebanon produces exceptional products.

I have personally visited factories and met industry leaders whose quality can compete internationally. Our problem isn't a lack of talent, creativity or production capability.

The problem is that many Lebanese manufacturers still depend on imported raw materials, packaging, machinery, spare parts and fuel.

Then come shipping, insurance, customs, transportation and energy costs.

Even when a product is manufactured in Lebanon, a significant part of its production process may remain connected to international suppliers and foreign currencies.

This makes local businesses highly exposed to changes in shipping costs, fuel prices, exchange rates and regional instability.

All those costs eventually appear in the final price paid by the consumer.

The Hidden Cost of Failed Infrastructure

Electricity is one of the clearest examples.

Many businesses must pay for several layers of energy. They may pay for state electricity, private generators, fuel, solar panels, batteries and maintenance. UNDP, writing in 2020, described citizens and companies as forced to use pollutive and expensive private generators to cope with shortages.

Every failure of public infrastructure becomes another private bill.

That bill is eventually passed to the customer.

When you buy a coffee in Beirut, you aren't only paying for coffee, milk and service. You're also helping the business cover imported ingredients, electricity, transportation, equipment, rent and the financial risk of operating in an unstable economy.

The Lebanese state does collect revenue, so saying that it has zero revenue would be inaccurate.

The deeper issue is that citizens and businesses receive very little in return. They're forced to purchase privately many of the services that functioning economies provide collectively.

This creates an economy in which people pay taxes, generator bills, private transportation, private healthcare, private education and private security.

Lebanon is expensive because many essential costs have been shifted onto households and businesses.

Why Temporary Price Increases Become Difficult to Reverse

Many price increases began as responses to supposedly temporary problems.

Shipping became more expensive. Fuel prices increased. Electricity became less reliable. The currency collapsed. Suppliers demanded payment in dollars. Businesses increased their prices to survive.

But when some of those costs later declined, consumer prices didn't always decline with them.

That doesn't mean prices can never come down. They can.

However, from a marketing and consumer behavior perspective, a higher price can become the new reference point once customers become accustomed to paying it.

Businesses may also hesitate to reduce their prices because they continue to face uncertainty. They don't know when shipping, fuel, electricity or imported materials will become more expensive again.

Greed and opportunistic pricing can also contribute. Some businesses may retain excessive margins after their costs decline, especially when competition and price transparency are weak. That shouldn't be used to accuse every Lebanese business, because many are still absorbing genuine costs and operating risks.

Cheaper shipping tomorrow won't automatically produce a cheaper latte.

Without stronger competition, better infrastructure and genuine reductions in operating costs, temporary price increases can become part of the permanent cost of living.

Public Transportation in Lebanon Is an Economic Necessity

Lebanon can't solve its affordability crisis only by asking employers to increase salaries.

The country must also reduce the cost of living.

A reliable and connected public transportation network should be one of the country’s priorities.

We need scheduled routes connecting Beirut with its suburbs and other major areas. We need safe buses, reliable arrival times, clear maps, digital payments and proper connections between different routes.

A functioning public transportation network wouldn't only reduce traffic.

It would lower the monthly cost of commuting, reduce dependence on private cars, decrease fuel consumption and help employees access more job opportunities.

It would also help businesses by making it easier for workers and customers to reach them.

Public transportation isn't simply a social service. It's economic infrastructure.

Could Solar Energy Support Public Transportation in Lebanon?

Lebanon has abundant sunshine, yet the country has failed to build an affordable and reliable national electricity system.

Solar energy could become part of a modern transportation strategy, but the idea must be technically and financially studied.

The realistic solution isn't simply placing solar panels on top of buses and expecting them to generate enough energy to operate independently.

Lebanon could examine electric buses charged at dedicated depots. Those depots could receive part of their electricity from solar installations supported by battery storage and a reliable electricity network.

Such a system would require a serious feasibility study, transparent procurement, proper charging infrastructure, trained technicians and professional long-term maintenance.

Solar energy is not a complete solution by itself. However, ignoring one of Lebanon’s strongest natural resources while continuing to depend heavily on imported fuel makes little economic sense.

We need to examine these ideas seriously.

Something must be done because the current situation is becoming increasingly unbearable.

When One Salary Is No Longer Enough

During my time in New York, I met people who told me they were working between 80 and 100 hours per week.

This isn't representative of every worker in New York, but it's something I have personally witnessed.

I fear that Lebanon is moving in the same direction, but with significantly lower earning potential.

One salary is already becoming insufficient for many Lebanese households. The World Bank’s Lebanon Poverty and Equity Assessment documents how sharply poverty has increased during the prolonged crisis. Soon, even two incomes may not be enough to maintain a normal standard of living.

More people will take second jobs, freelance at night, offer services online or launch small businesses.

We may see more entrepreneurs, but not necessarily because the business environment is improving.

Many people will become entrepreneurs because survival requires another source of income.

Can AI and E-Commerce Help Lebanese People Build a Side Hustle?

As one salary becomes insufficient, more Lebanese people will begin searching for side hustles simply to make ends meet.

This is where e-commerce and artificial intelligence can become practical tools for survival.

Someone with a full-time job could launch a small Shopify store, sell Lebanese products internationally or provide digital services to clients across the GCC, MENA and international markets.

Shopify development can reduce some of the technical barriers to launching an online store. However, building the website is only the beginning.

Sustainable e-commerce growth still requires the right product, realistic pricing, secure payments, dependable logistics, customer trust and consistent execution.

Artificial intelligence can make a small operation more manageable.

AI automation can support market research, content creation, customer service, lead qualification and repetitive administrative work. Business automation can connect customer inquiries, order management, inventory and customer relationship systems.

WhatsApp AI agents may be particularly valuable in Lebanon and the wider region, where WhatsApp is already central to communication between businesses and customers.

A properly developed WhatsApp AI system can answer common questions, collect customer information, provide order updates and transfer complex conversations to a human representative.

This could allow someone to manage a side business while continuing to work a full-time job.

SEO, GEO and CRO for Small Online Businesses

Launching an online store doesn't mean customers will automatically find it.

SEO can help a business become visible through traditional search engines such as Google and Bing.

Generative Engine Optimization, also known as GEO, can help make a company’s information clearer and more understandable to artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.

Conversion Rate Optimization, known as CRO, can help turn a greater percentage of website visitors into customers.

These tools can support digital transformation and revenue growth, but none of them guarantees success.

Artificial intelligence isn't a shortcut to easy money. E-commerce isn't passive income. Shopify isn't a replacement for a viable business model.

A successful side hustle still requires skills, discipline, time and the ability to solve a real customer problem.

We Should Not Romanticize the Side Hustle Economy

Artificial intelligence, e-commerce and business automation may help Lebanese people generate additional income and reach customers beyond Lebanon’s limited purchasing power.

For some households, that additional income could make a meaningful difference.

But we shouldn't celebrate a country in which everyone needs a second job or business just to afford a normal life.

Working constantly isn't always ambition.

Sometimes it's evidence that the economic system is failing.

Technology can help people adapt to the crisis. It can't make the crisis acceptable.

Lebanon Needs Lower Costs, Not Longer Working Hours

Honestly, living in Lebanon is becoming almost unbearable.

Lebanon can't survive by asking its citizens to work longer, pay privately for every essential service and absorb the cost of every institutional failure.

We need affordable and reliable electricity.

We need stronger local production and more competitive supply chains.

We need better logistics and a serious public transportation network.

We need digital skills, e-commerce and artificial intelligence to help Lebanese businesses reach regional and international markets.

But technology can't repair electricity, build transportation networks or replace institutional reform.

Lebanon needs both sides of the equation.

It needs functioning infrastructure that lowers the cost of living and doing business. It also needs digitally capable people and companies that can compete internationally and generate new sources of income.

A city can survive high prices when productivity, wages and public services rise with them.

It cannot survive indefinitely when the cost of living becomes global while people’s earning power remains trapped locally.

Sources

• World Bank, Lebanon poverty more than triples over the last decade, reaching 44 percent under a protracted crisis, published 23 May 2024, for the claim that poverty has risen sharply through the crisis. The press release reports monetary poverty rising from 12 percent in 2012 to 44 percent in 2022 in the areas surveyed, drawn from the Lebanon Poverty and Equity Assessment 2024, Weathering a Protracted Crisis, with the household survey run between December 2022 and May 2023. One point of precision the headline loses: the 44 percent figure covers five surveyed governorates, not the whole country.
• World Bank, Lebanon Economic Monitor, Spring 2025, Turning the Tide?, for the broader macroeconomic context referred to above. I want to be straight about what this page does and does not say, because it is easy to over-read. It projects real GDP growth of 4.7 percent in 2025. It does not provide a cumulative contraction figure since 2019, so no such figure appears in this article.
• UNDP, Blockchain-Enabled Solutions for the Uptake of Renewables Energy in Lebanon, dated 26 November 2020, for the generator claim. Its wording is that citizens and companies are forced to use pollutive and expensive private generators to cope with shortages. It says private generators rather than diesel specifically, and it is a 2020 document.

Sources opened and checked on 24 October 2026. The latte prices, the factory visits, the New York working hours and the account of what businesses pay for electricity are my own observation, not published data. Everything sourced here is dated: the poverty assessment is from 2024 on survey work from 2022 and 2023, the UNDP generator description is from 2020, and the Economic Monitor is a twice-yearly series, so a newer edition will have replaced the Spring 2025 one. Check the current edition before quoting any of it as a present-day measure of the Lebanese economy.