Summary: In the United States, flying has become both cheaper and more common over the past 25 years. Airfares have grown more affordable relative to wages, while the number of people traveling has risen sharply. Despite setbacks from crises like 9/11, the 2008 recession, and the pandemic, air travel today is far more accessible and abundant than at the start of the century.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks airfares while the Department of Transportation monitors enplanements (passenger boardings). Since 2000, the US population grew 22 percent while enplanements increased by 51 percent, and the time price of airfares for blue-collar workers decreased by 49 percent. This means that in 2025, these workers get 2.04 airfares for the same amount of time it took them to earn the money to buy one airfare in 2000, indicating an abundance increase of 104 percent. Every 1 percent increase in population corresponded with a 4.73 percent increase in personal airfare abundance (104 ÷ 22).

The historical chart clearly shows the negative impact of major disruptions – the September 11th attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic policies – on flying.

You can also analyze total airfare abundance by combining airfare time price abundance with increased passenger enplanements. To visualize that, we plot airfare time price abundance on the vertical axis and enplanements on the horizontal axis, creating comparative boxes for 2000 and 2025, and then overlaying 2000 onto 2025.

Using 2000 as our baseline (setting both variables to 1.0), the initial box measures 1.0 × 1.0 = 1.0. By 2025, enplanements had grown 51 percent (to 1.51) while airfare abundance increased by 104 percent (to 2.04). The 2025 box therefore measures 1.51 × 2.04 = 3.08.

That represents a 208 percent increase in total airfare abundance over 25 years, equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of 4.6 percent. At this pace, airfare abundance doubles approximately every 16 years. Every 1 percent increase in population corresponded with a 9.45 percent increase in personal airfare abundance (208 ÷ 22).

Tip of the Hat: Maxwell Tabarrok.

Find more of Gale’s work at his Substack, Gale Winds.

Summary: Economist Mark Perry’s “Chart of the Century” reveals that many goods—from TVs to clothing—have become significantly more affordable since 2000, while heavily regulated sectors like healthcare and education have not done so well. Focusing on time prices rather than dollar amounts provides a clearer picture of improving living standards. Since 2000, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has increased by 89.9 percent, but average hourly wages have increased by 127.4 percent. On average, an hour of your time will buy 19.7 percent more goods and services now than it would have in 2000.

It’s time for our semiannual update of Professor Mark Perry’s chart showing the percentage change in nominal prices for various US consumer goods and services alongside changes in average hourly wages. Perry’s data come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Of the 14 products tracked, four have seen a drop in nominal prices—TVs, toys, computer software, and cell phone services. Another five have risen in dollar terms but are actually cheaper in time prices: clothing, household furnishings, new cars, food and beverages, and housing. What stands out most, though, is that the products becoming less abundant—medical care services, childcare, college textbooks, tuition, and hospital services—are also the ones most heavily influenced by government intervention, whether through subsidies, regulation, or restricted supply.

We’ve compared the nominal price change of each product to the change in nominal average hourly wages, from which we can show the change in the time prices—positive or negative. Next, we compare the time prices over time to measure changes in abundance. This bar chart illustrates these changes:

Also note that this chart does not include TVs. The time price of TVs decreased by over 99 percent. For the time it took to earn the money to buy one TV in 2000, you would get almost 120 TVs today. TV abundance increased by 11,868 percent. The horizontal scale on the chart would be 15.6 times wider if we included TVs; everything else would look tiny.

Over this 25-year period, overall inflation increased by 89.9 percent while average hourly income increased by 127.4 percent. Hourly income increased 19.7 percent faster than prices. This indicates a 16.5 percent decrease in overall time prices. You get 19.7 percent more today for the same amount of time 25 years ago.

That illustrates the fact that things can get simultaneously more expensive in money prices and more affordable in time prices. As long as hourly wages are increasing faster than the prices of goods and services, time prices are decreasing, which is another way of saying personal abundance is increasing.

Time prices are a better way to measure standards of living. To really understand our economy, we must think in hours and minutes, not dollars and cents. Time prices are the true prices.

Find more of Gale’s work at his Substack, Gale Winds.

“Many people have a memory of some ancient, avocado-green washing machine or refrigerator chugging along for decades at their grandparents’ house. But even then, decade-spanning durability was uncommon.

Although I couldn’t find a ton of hard data on appliance lifespan over the past 40 years, nearly everyone I spoke with — service technicians, designers, engineers, trade-organization representatives, salespeople — said that kind of longevity was always the outlier, not the norm.

‘Everybody talks about the Maytag washing machine that lasts 50 years,’ said Daniel Conrad, a former product engineer at Whirlpool Corporation who is now the director of design quality, reliability, and testing for a commercial-refrigeration company. ‘No one talks about the other 4.5 million that didn’t last that long.'”

From New York Times.

Summary: Productivity, competition, and innovation have dramatically reduced the “time price” of consumer goods in the United States since 1971. The time required for a blue-collar worker to afford 75 finished goods has fallen dramatically, increasing the personal abundance available to these workers. This trend highlights the power of markets to enhance prosperity far beyond population growth, underscoring the importance of preserving economic freedom.

The website “WTF Happened in 1971?” highlights a collection of economic charts that purport to show a marked divergence in various economic, social, and financial metrics starting around 1971. The main argument presented on the website is that 1971 was a pivotal year in US economic history, primarily due to US President Richard Nixon’s decision to end the Bretton Woods system by detaching the US dollar from the gold standard. This shift allowed for fiat currency and government-controlled monetary policies, which the site argues led to inflation, income inequality, wage stagnation, and an increased cost of living.

Several economists showed that the actual picture of the post-1971 US economy is considerably less dystopian. In their 2022 book The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate, Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund and John Early calculated that properly measured US income distribution (i.e., one that takes into account taxes and social welfare transfers) is less unequal than was the case all the way back to the late 1940s. Similarly, Scott Winship found that the “pay of the median worker . . . has risen much more slowly since the early 1970s” but noted that “the pay of American workers has tracked productivity trends.” Put differently, American workers continue to be paid what they are worth.

What about the cost of living? Mark J. Perry’s well-known “Chart of the Century” differentiates between budget items that grew more and less affordable over the last quarter of a century. When adjusted for wage growth—prices and wages can increase at the same time—Americans must work more hours to pay for hospital services, college tuition and fees, college textbooks, childcare and nursery school, and medical care services. Conversely, they must work fewer hours to afford housing (yes, you read that correctly), food and beverages, new cars, household furnishings, clothing, cellphone services, computer software, and toys.

Whether the rising cost of education and health care, for example, is due to government-created market distortions or the Baumol Effect (i.e., the phenomenon in which wages in labor-intensive industries with low productivity growth, such as health care or education, rise due to competition for workers with industries that experience high productivity growth, leading to increased costs in the former without corresponding efficiency gains), is subject of much debate. That said, it is good to remind ourselves of productivity gains that can be achieved in markets exposed to domestic and international competition and automatization.

In our 2022 book Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet, Gale L. Pooley and I looked at the time prices (i.e., the number of hours and minutes of work an American blue-collar worker has to work to buy something) of a variety of foods, fuels, minerals, and metals. One table (p. 172) is devoted to time prices of 35 finished goods between 1979 and 2019, the average time price of which fell by 72.3 percent. That means that the same length of labor that bought an American blue-collar worker one unit in the basket of 35 finished goods in 1979 got him or her 3.61 units in 2019. The worker’s personal finished goods abundance rose by 261 percent.

Recently, we undertook a similar exercise to ascertain the effect of the recent bout of inflation on the time prices of 75 finished goods between 1971 and 2024. The 1971 data (i.e., nominal prices of 75 finished goods) came from the 1971 Sears catalog. The 2024 data (i.e., nominal prices of similar 75 finished goods) came from Walmart, Macy’s, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Home Depot and Amazon. We divided the 1971 nominal prices of 75 finished goods by $4.26, which was the hourly compensation rate of the average American blue-collar worker in 1971. We divided the 2024 nominal prices of 75 finished goods by $37.15, which was the approximate average hourly compensation rate of the US blue-collar worker in 2024.

We found that the average time price of menswear, childrenswear, womenswear, furniture, appliances, electronics, sporting goods, and power tools and garden equipment fell 80.7 percent. That means that the same length of labor that bought a US blue-collar worker one unit in the basket of 75 finished goods in 1971 bought that worker 5.19 units in 2024. The worker’s personal abundance of 75 finished goods rose by 419 percent. The compound annual growth rate in personal abundance of finished goods came to 3.16 percent, indicating a doubling of personal abundance every 22.31 years. Given that personal abundance rose by 419 percent, while the US population rose only by 62 percent between 1971 and 2024, we can say that abundance rose at a superabundant rate (i.e., faster than population).

Mostly deregulated markets, where production is subject to competition and automatization, can result in substantial reduction in time price and consequent increase in abundance. Let us keep that in mind as the debate over the appropriate level of restrictions on the freedom of the market rages around the world—from the far-flung New Zealand to our own United States.

U.S. Finished Goods: U.S. Blue-Collar Worker Perspective (1971-2024)

Change in Time Price of U.S. Finished Goods: U.S. Blue-Collar Perspective (1971-2024)

Change in Personal Resource Abundance Multiplier of U.S. Finished Goods: U.S. Blue-Collar Perspective (1971-2024)