It's a damn good thing people on fixed incomes don't live to be 400 and don't have to hold all their savings in cash. Aside from the basic nonsense of projecting purchasing power over periods in which what you can now purchase didn't exist.<p>This is of course also nonsense, but the one good that has existed that entire time is land. Manhattan was purchased for 60 guilders in 1623, projected to $24. According to Bloomberg, the estimate of Manhattan land value in 2018 was $1.74 trillion. Amusingly, thanks to the magic of compounding, that actually only implies a 6.5% average annual inflation rate.<p>Of course, land is a capital asset and expected to appreciate, but this is granting the Hacker News inflation hawks worst case that inflation rates should include nominal price increases in capital assets.<p>I'm having trouble finding decent data on this, but it looks like a guilder averaged about 10g of silver at the time? So saying Manhattan was worth 600g of silver, that's about 21.16 oz. The present value of Manhattan in ounces of silver is 62,142,857,142. That is 5.674% annual inflation denominated in silver.<p>Not bad for the dollar, I guess? Less than 1% per year worse decrease in purchasing power compared to silver?<p>I have no idea how the website I was looking at computed a dollar to guilder conversion rate a century and a half before the United States existed, though.
> When converted to the value of one US dollar in 2020, goods and services that cost one dollar in 1700 would cost just over 63 dollars in 2020, this means that one dollar in 1700 was worth approximately 63 times more than it is today.<p>Does anyone know what they mean by saying that the U.S. Dollar was worth X in 1700 (much less 1635) when it didn't even exist until 1792? Are they implicitly converting to the Spanish Dollar, or are they just saying that this is what the dollar <i>would </i> be worth if it were around back then? If the latter, how would you go about calculating this?<p>They attribute the data before 1913 to Dr. Robert Sahr of Oregon State, but I can only find him going back to 1774 [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/spp/polisci/research/inflation-conversion-factors-convert-dollars-1774-estimated-2024-dollars-recent-year" rel="nofollow">https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/spp/polisci/research/inf...</a>
It's really impossible, or at least impractical, to factor in all the changes in money supply, baskets of goods, inflation, growth in societal wealth, etc. to do inflation comparisons across centuries.<p>Gold has always been internationally recognized money, at least until Bretton-Woods <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system</a>. But there has never been enough gold to provide sufficient liquidity in the economy, so silver has also been considered money. And of course the gold/silver ratio has fluctuated historically. The dollar is derived from the Spanish silver doubloon, which was money in the New World. Britain restricting circulation currency was one of the grievances of the American colonies leading up to the war for independence. A doubloon could be divided into eight pieces with a chisel, hence the terms <i>two bits</i> to refer to a quarter and <i>pieces of eight</i> from pirate stories.<p>Apparently in law one troy ounce is still the official U.S. dollar coin <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States)#American_Silver_Eagle_(1986%E2%80%93present)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States)#Am...</a>. So I would say a better measure of dollar inflation is to smooth out the fluctuations in the gold/silver ratio and fluctuations in the silver/dollar price.
Inflation-adjusted views of the US minimum wage are similarly interesting: <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/03/05/minimum-wage-raise-15/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2021/03/05/minimum-wage-raise-15/</a><p>Just the chart/image: <a href="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2021/03/min-wage-chart-2-01.png" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2021/03/mi...</a>
I'm not sure how valid these charts are - how much of what can be purchased exists across the ages? How do you compare a bag of flour, the cost of a carpenter to make a table, the wool to make a sweater - with a pop tart, an iPhone and a pair of Nike sneakers?
I know that it says the values prior to 1913 were estimated, but how can it be possible for the dollar to have any purchasing power before the country even existed? Shouldn't it be a constant 0 until at least 1776?
This looks bad but a while back I read that if you put your dollars in t-bills, you actually came out slightly ahead in real terms over the past century. (I think it was in one of William Bernstein's books.)<p>T-bills of course are risk-free and arguably just another form of dollars. So don't hold your dollars long-term in the form that's intended for short-term spending.
Interesting to see the periods of deflation in the 1800’s.<p>I believe the US was on a mixed gold and silver standard at the time and they periodically ran into silver production issues.
Here's the purchasing power of one Euro (EUR): <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1055948/value-euro-since-2000/" rel="nofollow">https://www.statista.com/statistics/1055948/value-euro-since...</a>
Hmm. How many computers or iPhones or cars or televisions or bicycles could I have bought in 1635 with one US dollar. Come to think of it, where would I have gotten a US dollar in 1635?<p>(And yes, I've studied lots of economics and understand price deflators, inflation, etc.; the point is, these comparisons don't really make sense over extended periods of time like this.)
One interesting thing to note..<p>Historically, 1-1.5lbs of silver bought you a sheep and it’s the same for today (Rome -> 1500 -> Today).<p>I’d be interested to see what 2021 brings..
How many dollars did it take to cure Stage 1C breast cancer in 1635? How much did a Facetime call to Peru cost in 1635?<p>Ridiculous.<p>The deflator is useful only in the short term. If that.
The problem with those kinds of graphs is that the price-based fluctuations in purchasing power are dwarfed by the uncertainty in the hedonic adjustment that should be applied to make the comparisons meaningful across time.
Back in 1980 when I graduated high school someone gave me $20 so I used this site just a month ago to figure out how much to give a friend's daughter who was graduating.<p>The force multiplier is 3.16 or $63.20. =(
Up until the GFC, buying and reinvesting short-term rates (e.g. treasury 3 month bills), have more than compensated for inflation. Long-term rates from 1985 up until last year have had even better risk-adjusted-returns than equities.<p>The "all currencies die or devalue" thesis is technically correct if you're holding cash under your mattress, but it's also misleading since real rates have been historically positive...
Is there anywhere that's done a deeper dive into "what you could afford" means? I want to see how few hours you could work throughout history to afford absolute necessities. And then split this based on minimum wage, average wage, median wage etc.
How many 1850 'dollars' would it take to get from NYC to London in 5 hours?<p>How many to get a heart transplant?<p>Or a 'vehicle' that travels great distances, quickly, on rubber wheels?<p>Or to get strawberries during winter?<p>Or to talk, live, to a person on the other side of the country?<p>Inflation is a difficult thing to measure.
What happened in the mid 1700's to start a drop? I can understand the drops starting in the 1910's, and then again in the 1960's due to the federal reserve and the removal from gold standard, but what about the 1700's?
I thought this was interesting so I created a chart to show the value of US Dollar, against US Dollars over time:<p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/89MSmlf.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/89MSmlf.png</a>
It's interesting to see the bump in the 1930s. That's what a deflation looks like - money gets more valuable.<p>And the curve flattened around 1980 when Volcker broke the back of inflation (at the price of two recessions).
The trade of the 20th century was shorting the dollar. How do you short the dollar? Take out big loans on fixed interest rate debt and buy commodities that don't depreciate.
Argentinian here: Ohh... my sweet summer child.<p>Anyway, it's not really that important unless it changes in value suddenly without giving you time to adjust.
A silver dollar in 1960 would buy about 4 gallons of gasoline.<p>That same silver dollar now buys about 7 gallons. (Melt value)<p>A 1960 dollar bill bought 4 gallons of gasoline back then, and now would purchase about 1/3 gallon.<p>It really does depend on what kind of "dollar" you're talking about.
Putting your sources and method(ology) behind a paywall is really lame. It's akin to having to pay to see the ingredients included in a food item.