So a bit under $2.50/meal. That’s very comparable to lower/lower-middle in the USA.

In capital city, I'd say it's about $4-5/meal (including drink) in daily basis. For those who eat lots of things, $7/meal makes them full.

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footnote here: official income record of thai people/businesses does not really reflect reality. Lots of entities are kind of off-system.

Where do you spend 120 baht a meal? That's a restaurant meal, not the average meal. I don't spend more than 60 baht in Bangkok. At $7 (250 baht) you're talking about a night out (maybe except alcohol), way off of the "average meal".

I worked in BKK since 2016 and office staff usually goes to the cheapo restaurants (which I frequented too), so 40-80 baht is completely common also for white collar workers. But meat, vegetable and oil quality is really shady in that price range.

I prefer to order grab of around 120-200 baht from a "healthy" place or going for restaurants within Central 200-400 baht per meal.

(including drink) .. if you eat rice something with water everyday, it's quite a tight lifestyle.

I love the tightest lifestyle eating rice and 1-2 side dishes from street vendors who deserve the money rather than foreign investors to extract money from the economy like leeches.

$2.50/meal prepared outside, not from ingredients like in the US. You can easily get a meal for 40 baht across Thailand ($1.20)

The funny thing about rice with something, most of the time you want to add an fried egg too (more likely like + 10 bath charge). Crispy Pork is about 10 bath more expensive than the other. I think 40 bath is like 5 years ago pricing. You can still get it somewhere. 50-60 bath is more standard now.

Where did you get that number?

A decade of data set from my experience and network. Not from govt.