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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/images/favicon.ico"> <title>Measuring Worth - Relative Worth Comparators and Data Sets</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <link href="includes/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <meta name="keywords" content="measuring worth, inflation rates, saving calculator, relative value, worth of a dollar, worth of a pound, purchasing power, gold prices, GDP, history of wages, average wage, real wage, growth calculator, stock prices, historic stock prices, exchange calculator, stock growth rates, how much is that worth, CPI, RPI, exchange rates, relative worth, consumer bundle, interest rates, S&P accumulation, history of gold prices"> </head> <body> <div id="container"> <link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/images/favicon.ico">  <div id="header"> <div style="height:70px;padding-top:20px;"><a href="/index.php" title="MeasuringWorth.com"><img src="/images/logo.png" alt="Measuring Worth, inflation rates, saving calculator, relative value, worth of a dollar, worth of a pound, purchasing power, gold prices, GDP, history of wages, average wage, real wage, growth calculator" width="400" height="43" vspace="10" border="0" align="left" ></a></div> <ul class="menudd"> <li><a href="/index.php">HOME</a></li> <li><a href="/aboutus.php">ABOUT US</a> <ul> <li><a href="/2020x-citations-with-links.html" class="documents">CITATIONS</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="/guide.php">USER GUIDES</a> <ul> <li><a href="/guide.php" class="documents">GUIDE</a></li> <li><a href="/tutorials.php" class="messages">TUTORIALS</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="/glossary/index.php">GLOSSARY & FAQ</a> <ul> <li><a href="/glossary/index.php" class="documents">GLOSSARY</a></li> <li><a href="/glossary/index.php#faq" class="messages">FAQ</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="/essays.php">ESSAYS</a> <ul> <li><a style="width:400px;" href="/explaining_measures_of_worth.php" class="documents">MEASURES OF WORTH</a></li> <li><a style="width:400px;" href="/slavery.php" class="messages">MEASURING SLAVERY</a></li> <li><a style="width:400px;" href="/Presidents.php" class="documents">THE RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF PRESIDENTS</a></li> <li><a style="width:400px;" href="/parable-two-workers.php" class="messages">PARABLE OF SAVING</a></li> <li><a style="width:400px;" href="/uk-gdp-volatility.php" class="messages">THE VOLATILITY OF THE UK GDP</a></li> </ul></li> <li><a href="/contribute_donate.php">SUPPORT US</a></li> <li><a href="/sendcomment.php">CONTACT US</a></li> </ul> <p class="blog-announcement"> </p> </div>  <style type="text/css"> /* HOW TO CREATE A CSS3 DROPDOWN MENU [TUTORIAL] "How to create a CSS3 Dropdown Menu [Tutorial]" was specially made for DesignModo by our friend Valeriu Timbuc. 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There is no objective way to measure these, nor should there be.</p> <p>The worth of monetary transactions is also difficult to measure. While a price, wage, or other kind of transaction can be recorded at a precise point in time, the <i>worth</i> of the amount must be interpreted. The father of economics, Adam Smith, discussed this very question in one of the most important books in economics, <em>The Wealth of Nations (1776):</em></p> <blockquote> <p>"The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it... But though labour be the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities, it is not that by which their value is commonly estimated... Every commodity, besides, is more frequently exchanged for, and thereby compared with, other commodities than with labour.<em>"</em></p> </blockquote> <p>One can imagine that a hamburger of the same price is "worth" more to a starving homeless person than to a very wealthy one. An allowance of five pennies a week was worth more to a child in 1902 than it is to a child today. We do acknowledge though, as Oscar Wilde pointed out in his famous quip, money worth and intrinsic worth are not necessarily same. </p> <blockquote> <p>"Cecil Graham: What is a cynic? <br> Lord Darlington: A man who knows the <em>price</em> of everything, and the <em>value</em> of nothing. <br> Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd <em>value</em> in everything and doesn’t know the market <em>price</em> of any single thing.” <br> —Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892.</p> </blockquote> <p>It can be more difficult when the question is to determine the "historical" worth of something. The price, even deflated for inflation, is not enough. Was Andrew Carnegie richer than Bill Gates? Did Babe Ruth make more than LeBron James? Was the cost of a loaf of bread more then than now? These questions all depend on the context and the comparators on this web site enable users to make their own comparisons. We discuss these issues more in the essay <a href="defining_measures_of_worth.php" class="content" title="Measures of Worth">Measures of Worth<u></u></a>, which provides a methodology for deciding which measure of worth is appropriate for the subject at hand. If you are new to our site, we recommend you look at our <a href="guide.php" class="content" title="User Guide">User Guide.</a></p> <p>MeasuringWorth was<a href="/historyofMW.php" class="content"> founded</a> in 2006 and is widely used by academics in many fields. Each year we have found over 200 citations in scholarly works to our site. Here are lists of those citations for that last six years, <a href="/2018x-citations.html" class="content">2018 citations</a>, <a href="/2019x-citations.html" class="content">2019 citations</a>, <a href="/2020x-citations.html" class="content">2020 citations</a>, <a href="/2021x-citations.html" class="content">2021 citations</a>, <a href="/2022x-citations.html" class="content">2022 citations</a>, and <a href="/2023x-citations.html" class="content">2023 citations</a>. <h3><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> </h3> </div> </div>  <div id="navigation">      <a href="/blog.php" target="_blank"><img style="width:200px;" src="/images/blog-read.png"></a> <br> <a class='navigation' href="/calculators/index.php" title="Calculate purchasing power, savings growth, stock growth rates and more">THE COMPARATORS</a><br> <div class='submenu'> <a class='submenu' title="Measuring Worth - Annualized Growth Rates" href='/growth/'>Annualized Growth Rates</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US Purchasing Power" href='/ppowerus/'>Purchasing Power Today - US $</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US Relative Values" href='/uscompare/'>Relative Values - US $</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="UK Relative Values" href='/ukcompare/'>Relative Values - UK £</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Australian Relative Values" href='/australiacompare/'>Relative Values - Australia £ and $</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Australian Relative Values" href='/spaincompare/'>Relative Values - Spain</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Convert dollars to pounds" href='/exchange/'>Conversion ($ and £)</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="UK Purchasing Power" href='/ppoweruk/'>Purchasing Power - UK £</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US Savings Growth" href='/ussave/'>Savings Growth - US $</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US Savings Growth" href='/401k&IRA/'>401k & IRA Growth - US</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Calculate inflation rates" href='/inflation/'>Inflation Rates</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Stock Growth Rates - DJIA, SP500 & NASDAQ" href='/DJIA_SP_NASDAQ/'>Stock Growth Rates<br />  (DJIA, SP500 & NASDAQ)</a> </div> <a class='navigation' title="Graph the value of things over time" href="/graphs/">GRAPHS</a><br> <a class='navigation' title="Data sets for measuring worth" href="/datasets/index.php">DATA SETS</a><br> <div class='submenu'> <a class='submenu' title="US GDP over time" href='/usgdp/'>GDP - US </a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US CPI over time" href='/uscpi/'>CPI - US</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US wage over time" href='/uswage/'>Wage - US</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US Consumer Bundle over time" href='/consumer/'>Consumer Bundle - US</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="UK GDP over time" href='/ukgdp/'>GDP - UK </a><br> <a class='submenu' title="UK RPI & earnings over time" href='/ukearncpi/'>RPI & Earnings - UK</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Spain GDP over time" href='/spaingdp/'>GDP, Prices & Wages - Spain </a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Australia GDP, Prices & Stocks over time" href='/datasets/australiadata/'>GDP, Prices & Stocks - Australia</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Chinese GDP & Prices over time" href='/auswages/'>Wages - Australia </a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US SAP over time" href='/datasets/sap/'>Annual S&P Index</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Daily DJA over time" href='/datasets/DJA/index.php'>Daily DJA</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="price of gold over time" href='/gold/'>Price of Gold</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="US & UK Interest Rates over time" href='/interestrates/'>Interest Rates - US & UK</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Dollar Exchange Rates over time" href='/exchangeglobal/'>Dollar Exchange Rates</a><br> <a class='submenu' title="Dollar-Pound Exchange Rate over time" href='/exchangepound/'>Dollar-Pound Exchange Rate</a> </div> <a class='navigation' title="Data sets for measuring worth" href="/newsletter.php">SIGN UP FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS</a><br>  </div>   <div id="footer"> <div class="footer-header">MeasuringWorth is a service for calculating relative worth over time.</div> <p><a class='footer' href="../index.php" title="Measuring Worth home page">Home</a> | <a class='footer' href="/aboutus.php" title="Learn more about the Measuring Worth project">About Us</a> | <a class='footer' href="/sendcomment.php" title="Contact the Measuring Worth staff">Contact Us</a> | <a class='footer' href="/contribute_donate.php" title="Contribute to the Measuring Worth project">Support Our Work</a><br /><br /> Copyright © <script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script> MeasuringWorth. 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