You only have to look at long-term trends to see what nonsense that is. Since you mentioned milk, let's use that. In the UK, in 1914, a pint of milk cost 1d,

You only have to look at long-term trends to see what nonsense that is. Since you mentioned milk, let's use that. In the UK, in 1914, a pint of milk cost 1d, and the average wage was 16s 6d for a standard 58 hour working week. That's an average wage of 198 pints of milk per week, or 3.4 pints of milk per hour. In 2016, a pint of milk is 45p. The minimum wage is £7.20, or 16 pints of milk per hour. If you buy your milk in four-pint bottles (economies of scale not available in 1914), your wage doubles to 32 pints of milk per hour, a nearly 10-fold increase on a hundred years ago, and you're only working two-thirds of the amount of time per week, too!