capitalism

Material Progress 323
• soft and disposable contact lenses
• LASIK surgery
• home copiers and fax machines
• digital cameras
• ATMs
• pharmaceuticals to treat high-blood pressure, depression,
allergies, and impotence
This list can, of course, be extended much further.
A second alternative way to assess empirically recent
trends in the material standard of living of Americans since
the mid-1970s is to look at how long a worker earning the
median nominal wage back then had to work to buy a sample
selection of basic consumer goods, compared with how
many hours of work today are required to purchase these
same goods. (It is worth keeping in mind that, when
adjusted for inflation using the CPI, today’s median wage
appears to be barely higher than was the real median
wage in 1973, suggesting that a worker earning the median
wage today would have to work about the same number of
hours as did his counterpart 35 years earlier to buy the same
goods.) Comparing the time needed to work at each of
these two different points of time avoids the need to adjust
wages and prices for inflation.
Cox and Alm performed this exercise in their 1999
book. For example, they found that, according to the most
up-to-date data available when they wrote their book:
• a gallon of milk today (in the late 1990s) costs about 30%
less work time than in the 1970s;
• a loaf of bread costs about 13% less work time;
• oranges cost 40% less work time;
• a coast-to-coast telephone call costs about 92% less work
time; today, of course, such calls are practically free;
• chicken costs about 36% less work time;
• a McDonald’s Big Mac costs 20% less work time; and
• 100 miles of air travel costs about 39% less work time.
A similar exercise using nominal hourly wage data and
a 1975 Sears catalog suggests similar conclusions. If one
checks a few items from that catalog that are reasonably—
although hardly fully—comparable to similar items in
January 2008 and then divides the average hourly nominal
earnings of production workers in 1975 ($4.87 in
December of that year) into the price of each of these (more
or less) randomly selected items, these are the results:
• Sears’ lowest-priced 10-inch table saw: 52.35 hours of
work required in 1975; 5.63 hours of work required in
2008.
• Sears’ lowest-priced gasoline-powered lawn mower: 13.14
hours of work required in 1975 (to buy a lawn mower that
cuts a 20-inch swathe); 8.44 hours of work required in
2008 (to buy a lawn mower that cuts a 22-inch swathe;
Sears no longer sells a power mower that cuts a swathe
smaller than 22 inches).
• Sears Best side-by-side refrigerator-freezer: 139.62 hours
of work required in 1975 (to buy a unit with 22.1 cubic
feet of storage capacity); 61.9 hours of work required in
2008 (to buy a comparable unit with 25.0 cubic feet of
storage capacity).
• Sears’ lowest-priced answering machine: 20.43 hours of
work required in 1975; 1.4 hours of work required in 2008
(and the 2008 machine comes with a telephone; Sears no
longer sells stand-alone answering machines).
• A 1/2-horsepower garbage disposer: 20.52 hours of work
required in 1975; 4.22 hours of work required in 2008.
• Sears’ lowest-priced garage-door opener: 20.1 hours of
work required in 1975 (to buy a 1/4-horsepower opener);
7.6 hours of work required in 2008 (to buy a 1/2-horsepower
opener; Sears no longer sells garage-door openers
with less than 1/2 horsepower).
• Sears’ only drip coffee maker (nonprogrammable, 10 cups):
7.47 hours of work required in 1975; 1.57 hours of work
required in 2008 (although the 2008 model brews 12 cups).
• Sears’ highest-priced work boots: 11.49 hours of work
required in 1975; 9.0 hours of work required in 2008.
• Sears Best automobile tire (with specs 165/13, and a tread
life warranty of 40,000 miles): 8.37 hours of work required
in 1975; 2.53 hours of work required in 2008 to buy Sears
most expensive tire of this size (although in 2008 the warranty
is not specified).
Still, close inspection of a 1975 Sears catalog alongside
products for sale today at Sears.com makes clear four facts:
(1) the range of products is larger today, (2) the range of
different varieties of each type of product is larger today,
(3) the inflation-adjusted prices are generally lower today,
and (4) the quality of the products is much higher today.
Of course, these facts do not prove, in any rigorous way,
that ordinary Americans’ material well-being is higher
today than it was in the recent past. But they are strongly
suggestive of a higher standard of living. The strength of
this suggestion increases when it is considered in light of
the fact that today Americans’ life expectancy is at an alltime
high and that Americans’ rate of homeownership is
also at an all-time high. The global market economy that
began to sprout immediately after World War II continues
to improve living standards.
DJB
See also Civil Society; Natural Harmony of Interests; Simon, Julian;
Smith, Adam
Further Readings
Cox, W. Michael, and Richard Alm. Myths of Rich & Poor. New
York: Basic Books, 1999.
Fogel, Robert William. The Escape from Hunger and Premature
Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Goklany, Indur. The Improving State of the World. Washington, DC:
Cato Institute, 2007.