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In his TED talk "Why are there still so many jobs?", David Autor stated:

The average worker in 2015 wanting to attain the average living standard in 1915 could do so by working just 17 weeks a year, one third of the time.

What proves this (or disproves it)?

user5341
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  • "average living standard" might be a little subjective. Perhaps he means when 1915 dollars are inflation adjusted, the average "living wage" in 1915 is equal to 17 weeks of work for someone with average "living wage" in 2015. If that's what he means, it should be easy to check. –  Dec 22 '16 at 00:09
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    I sent an email to Professor Autor to clarify the exact meaning of the claim. If there's any response, i'll update the question – user5341 Dec 22 '16 at 00:45
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    OK, got the clarification from Prof Autor. The claim is merely about wages, not anything more in-depth. `Douglas (1930; reproduced in US Bureau of the Census 1949) reports average annual earnings across all sectors in 1915 at $633. Inflating this to 2015 dollars using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics historical Consumer Price Index calculator yields a current dollar equivalent of $14,711. The BLS employment report from April 2015 reports mean weekly private nonfarm earnings of $858. Thus, it would take 17 weeks of work at the average US weekly wage to earn a full-time annual 1915 income` – user5341 Dec 22 '16 at 03:16
  • Source: Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 29, Number 3—Summer 2015—Pages 3–30; Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation – user5341 Dec 22 '16 at 03:18

1 Answers1

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It's true in the USA in the sense of the article A Glimpse of Your Expenses from 100 Years Ago:

Take-home pay in 2015 vs. 1915. Census Bureau data show that the median household income, measured from 2009 to 2013 (the most recent data available), is $53,046. Back in 1915, two years after income tax came on the scene, you were doing about average if you were making $687 a year, according to the Census.

...

Today, that $687 would be comparable to earning $16,063 a year, according to an inflation calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' website. So Americans' buying power has improved considerably in the last century.

See also the US Bureau of Labor Statistics article The life of American workers in 1915

Coomie
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DavePhD
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    The quote uses a non sequitur. Income is only half the equation of "buying power". Expenses should also be considered. –  Dec 22 '16 at 03:12
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    Interesting... so workers nowadays make around 3x more money than they did 100 years ago. What sucks is that prices have gone up way more than that for many things... Litre of milk, for example, used to be ~$0.10, now it's closer to $1. We make comparatively more, but we need to spend even more on daily essentials. – Dungarth Dec 22 '16 at 03:13
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    @Dungarth That three times is after inflation. Before inflation it went up over 700 times from $687 to $53,046. I.e. they already accounted for prices increasing. – Brythan Dec 22 '16 at 03:34
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    @Dungarth: Some things have gone up, but the price of many other things has gone down. How about the price of a telephone in 1915? Or a car, a bicycle, a music player, fruit & vegetables out of season? That's why you can't really compare living standards: because life is different. – jamesqf Dec 22 '16 at 04:08
  • @jamesqf - totally true! it's really freaky how economy can vary from one era to another, and how things gain/lose value according to so many factors. – Dungarth Dec 22 '16 at 04:12
  • @jamesqf I had one great-grandfather that lived long enough to explain this to me. For him, no electricity, no phone, no indoor plumbing (he still had outhouse when I was a kid), no car, essentially never leave small town. Have garden, fruit trees, cow, pig, chickens and can foods for winter. Work in coal mine, slaughter other people's animals on the side in exchange for meat. Heat house with coal in basement furnace with no distribution system. Play cards and drink with the other coal miners for fun. – DavePhD Dec 22 '16 at 09:07
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    @jamesqf, "you can't really compare living standards", except that people do, all the time, saying how people were better off 40/60 years ago. – Benjol Dec 22 '16 at 12:32
  • @Benjol when they do that, remind them of DavePhD's description. ;) Really, life in general is much better now than back then. – ReasonablySkeptical Dec 22 '16 at 14:23
  • @Benjol: Well, it depends on what groups you're comparing, and what you personally value. I'd take much of DavePhD's great-grandfather's life (sans the coal mine!) over living in a modern urban area, and in many respects have done so. (Though of course I have electricity, indoor plumbing, &c.) But to live that sort of life today, with the best of both worlds, really takes income/assets in the upper quintile of the US population. – jamesqf Dec 22 '16 at 18:43
  • @jamesqf, quite. I'd probably settle for most of that lifestyle (though my other half wouldn't!), just with modern medical facilities too. Unfortunately it would be difficult to maintain modern medical facilities in isolation if the rest of society was essentially Luddite... – Benjol Dec 23 '16 at 05:45
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    @Benjol: True. The point I was trying to make is that while some things that compose a 1915 living standard are much cheaper today (and some of today's things aren't available at all), other things like land have become very much more expensive. – jamesqf Dec 23 '16 at 19:18