There's no question that general standards of living have improved enormously, with some areas having much more improvement than others.
The comparison isn't US$1000 exchanged to Somali Shillings and looking at purchasing power. A Somali quartet is not earning anywhere near $1000 after conversion, and the price of many other products and services would be much cheaper compared to the US as well.
Nor is the comparison $1000 US dollars in 2024 and looking at what that same nominal amount would purchase in distant history.The quartet would be earning much less in nominal amounts, but the nominal amounts of everything are cheaper as well.
Here are some hard figures. Using the year 1800 as the comparison.
USA economy
$1000 in 2024 = $40 in 1800. A 2388% increase attributed to inflation.
String quartet gig in 2024 = $1000
For 1800 it's hard to find earnings for anything outside of labor and manufacturing however the wage for a teacher was around $1 per day.
If we make a big assumption that teachers and musicians pay were equivalent, then it would appear that the purchasing power of a string quartet has 10x the purchasing power today after accounting for inflation $40 / 4 persons / $1 = 10).
10x is quite consistent across all occupations that I can find equivalents for (skewed heavily toward labouring and manufacturing, very few services are reported in 1800).
So in that sense the string quartet isn't an outlier, for the most part we are all enjoying around 10x the purchasing power since 1800.
One day's earnings now is equivalent to 10 days in 1800. This is great, but not anywhere near 1 day = 1 year.
Estimating inflation back to 1100 would be very difficult .. as would determining day wages, the economic system was very different.
Americans in 1800 were enormously wealthier than Englishmen in 1100. Again, I’m not comparing nominal values. I’m comparing purchasing power and typical wages. The purchasing power of $1000 today is more than what an Englishman in 1100 had available for a year. If you offered $1000 of today’s dollars worth of purchasing power to an Englishman in 1100 to work for you for a year, he would jump at the opportunity to do so. An American in 1800 would not do so, because Americans were much wealthier in 1800 (or, for that matter, in 1650).
The comparison isn't US$1000 exchanged to Somali Shillings and looking at purchasing power. A Somali quartet is not earning anywhere near $1000 after conversion, and the price of many other products and services would be much cheaper compared to the US as well.
Nor is the comparison $1000 US dollars in 2024 and looking at what that same nominal amount would purchase in distant history.The quartet would be earning much less in nominal amounts, but the nominal amounts of everything are cheaper as well.
Here are some hard figures. Using the year 1800 as the comparison.
USA economy $1000 in 2024 = $40 in 1800. A 2388% increase attributed to inflation.
String quartet gig in 2024 = $1000 For 1800 it's hard to find earnings for anything outside of labor and manufacturing however the wage for a teacher was around $1 per day.
If we make a big assumption that teachers and musicians pay were equivalent, then it would appear that the purchasing power of a string quartet has 10x the purchasing power today after accounting for inflation $40 / 4 persons / $1 = 10).
10x is quite consistent across all occupations that I can find equivalents for (skewed heavily toward labouring and manufacturing, very few services are reported in 1800).
So in that sense the string quartet isn't an outlier, for the most part we are all enjoying around 10x the purchasing power since 1800.
One day's earnings now is equivalent to 10 days in 1800. This is great, but not anywhere near 1 day = 1 year.
Estimating inflation back to 1100 would be very difficult .. as would determining day wages, the economic system was very different.
Sources: Inflation - https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?
Labor wages in 1800 - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89071501472&seq=17...
Current wages - bis.gov