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I think that's a little trickier to pin down than that. Yes food costs less. Housing? Maybe. But now things you didn't have 100 years ago are requirements.

I think that's a little trickier to pin down than that. Yes food costs less. Housing? Maybe. But now things you didn't have 100 years ago are requirements. For example, if you don't have a phone today you're going to have a hard time finding and keeping a job. Keeping someone from 100 years ago alive would certainly cost less than it did then but you have to also consider if they could function in today's society on that money, otherwise it's not a realistic comparison.

roel_v 16y ago
Yes this is true, but only to a certain extent. It's why I put in the "when comparing with a constant standard of living though", but that is trickier than just that one line of course, as you correctly point out. Still many of the factors that are considered 'requirements' today aren't in my book, but of course this can be subject to discussion. To take your telephone example, here in the Netherlands (an advanced Western country by all measures) I don't know of many jobs that one wouldn't be able to get or keep without a phone. For those where you're on-call, you are provided with one. Similarly, cost of living statistics by our national statistics institute changed their household budgets a few years ago - the tv has been a 'basic necessity' for decades (in these statistics), but the budget was upped several hundred euros because now LCD tv's are the norm. Still I think it's stupid to budget 800 euros every 5 years for a TV into a 'basic necessity' budget. I remain convinced that even after accounting for an adjusted lifestyle to the level of a 'basic lifestyle', and where 'basic needs' have evolved to match societal progress, the increase in income has outpaced the rise of cost of living.