The Increasing Affordability of Consumer Goods

In today's post about Consumption vs. Consumerism (Part 2), I observe that the price of commodities has been dropping over the past 140 years, the recent spike in prices notwithstanding. One indirect measure of what has been happening with commodity prices (like iron ore, copper, and aluminum) is to look at the real cost of consumer goods produced from these commodities.

Mark Perry at Carpe Diem has been shopping E-Bay for old Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs. Lately, he has been publishing posts comparing items from 1949 to roughly the same in 2009. He then calculates the hours a worker would need to work at the average manufacturing wage to buy the goods. Here are his first three comparisons.

Refrigerator

Here are ads for a 1949 9.2 cubic foot Sears frig versus a 2009 9.5 cubic foot Sears frig. (Source)

"Sears Coldspot Spacemaster Refrigerator, available on sale in the 1949 Sears catalog for $224.75. The average hourly manufacturing wage in 1949 was $1.26, meaning that the average worker had to work for 178.4 hours (22.3 days or 4.5 weeks) in 1949 to earn enough money (before tax) to purchase the refrigerator."

"A current Sears model 9.5 cubic feet refrigerator, available on sale for $339.99. At the current average hourly manufacturing wage of $18.03, the average worker would have to work today for only 18.9 hours (only 2.4 days) to purchase the refrigerator."

The comparison:

Toasters (Source)

Washing Machines (Source)

It is worth noting that even this comparison underrepresents the changes. Today's models are far more energy efficient and usually have many more features that give the user more value.

The prices of such items have been dropping for years. The price of the raw materials that go into them have been dropping for years. Technological innovation in producing and recycling used-up goods will only make the goods more affordable, even with much greater global demand.