Friday 3 October 2003

Standards of Living

While perusing A Voyage To Arcturus, I happened upon a comparison table between costs in the USA in 1959 vs 2003, in terms of the average wage. Simply put, how long would the average American have to work to earn enough to buy various commodities? I've added the figures for Australia, which make an interesting comparison.





Amount of Work Required to Purchase:19592003Australia 2003
3-Bedroom House2.5 years4 years12 years

New Ford

5 months7 months16 months
Gasoline, 1 gallon (3.8 litres)7 minutes5 minutes14 minutes
Bread, 1 pound (400g)5 minutes3 minutes7 minutes
Milk, 1 gallon (3.8 litres)23 minutes9 minutes20 minutes
First Class Postage Stamp55 seconds1 min 10 sec2 minutes

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