Summary: We introduce the American Abundance Index, which measures living standards by how many hours Americans must work to afford a standard basket of goods, rather than by prices or wages alone. The index uses time prices to show that for most US workers, purchasing power has generally risen over the last two decades, even amid inflation and public pessimism.

The resilience of the American worker is one of the most underreported stories of the 2020s. From red tape to import taxes, successive governments have erected barriers to success. Yet America’s workers have persevered and figured out ways to prosper.

A new American Abundance Index illustrates this. The project from Human Progress, an arm of the Cato Institute, reveals the steady rise of the average worker’s purchasing power. The premise of the index is simple: how many hours do you need to work, compared to the month or year before, to be able to afford the “basket of goods,” which is a standard set of household items and services that comprise the Consumer Price Index used to calculate inflation.

The “time price” is how many hours of work it takes to purchase the basket of goods. The “abundance” is how much of the basket one hour of work can buy. The story told by the index is a very good one: since recordkeeping began, “abundance” for average private sector workers comes out to a net increase of 13.8 percent.

It increased the past year, too. The index shows the average private sector worker saw prices rise by 2.7 percent from December 2024 to December 2025, while their hourly wages grew by 3.8 percent. This means workers could work 1 percent less to buy the same basket of goods. Put differently, workers could afford 1 percent more stuff.

The reason for this is that earnings have continued to outpace inflation. So long as wages increase faster than inflation, the worker gets ahead. And it’s not just desk jobs that have enabled workers to purchase the same amount of goods and services for fewer hours worked. The gain for traditional “blue collar workers” is even higher: a historical net increase of 18.4 percent since 2006.

Despite workers significantly increasing their purchasing power over the past two decades, the past five years have taken a toll. The self-inflicted pain of printing vast sums of money during the pandemic sent the annualized inflation rate to over 9 percent in 2022, far outstripping raises. While inflation is now mostly under control, it has taken time for the gap between wages and inflation to settle, and workers are only now just catching up after their losses during those inflation-heavy years.

Americans continue to rank affordability as a top concern and do not believe the government is doing enough to address the cost of living. These frustrations are understandable. Prices are still rising while tariffs and uncertainty strangle businesses and push consumer confidence to a 12-year low. America’s growth and prosperity story has always been one of fits and starts, and workers are right to demand that government gets out of their way. But the new data make clear that 21st century Americans can still be content about how far they’ve come and optimistic about how far they’ve yet to go.

This article was originally published in the Washington Post on 2/6/2026.

We are excited to share a new tool we’ve been building at Human Progress: The American Abundance Index—an interactive dashboard that tracks US living standards while adjusting for both inflation and rising incomes.

The idea is straightforward: how many hours do you need to work to afford the same basket of goods and services? Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the American Abundance Index converts price and wage growth into “time prices”—the amount of work time required to buy the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket of goods and services—and “abundance,” which is the inverse: how much of that basket one hour of work can buy. When time prices fall, abundance rises, and each hour of work goes further. That’s the measure of affordability that actually matters.

Conceptually, this work builds off of Superabundance, a book by our editor, Marian Tupy, and his coauthor and Human Progress board member, Gale Pooley. Their core argument—that abundance is best measured in time—forms the foundation of the project. The index itself was built by our Quantitative Research Associate, Jackson Vann.

Users can select multiple worker categories, compare short- and long-run trends, and even see wage growth modeled to reflect real career progression rather than freezing workers in place. All the calculations are transparent and replicable, with the full dataset and code available on GitHub.

So what does the index actually say about American standards of living?

Over the past 12 months, inflation rose 2.68 percent while hourly earnings for the average private-sector worker grew 3.76 percent. As a result, the CPI basket became 1.05 percent more abundant. Since 2006, it has become nearly 14 percent more abundant—roughly equivalent to adding an hour of purchasing power to the average workday.

Summary: Comparing nominal price changes to changes in average hourly wages from 2000 to 2025, we can see that many goods with rising dollar prices have become more affordable in time prices.

Professor Mark Perry from the American Enterprise Institute recently posted an updated version of his “Chart of the Century,” featuring price and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The chart tracks 14 items over the 25-year period from January 2000 to December 2025. It also includes the overall inflation rate and changes in average hourly wages.

To examine the data from a different perspective, we calculated the change in the time prices of these 14 items relative to the change in the average hourly wage rate. We then calculated the abundance multiplier—a value indicating how many units you could buy today for the time it took to earn money to buy one unit in 2000. If there were no change, the abundance multiplier would equal one. A value below one indicates decreasing abundance, while a value above one reflects increasing abundance. We also calculated the percentage change in abundance for each item.

This analysis illustrates that things can become more expensive in dollar terms while simultaneously becoming more affordable in time prices. For instance, while the general Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 92.6 percent, average hourly wages increased by 131.1 percent. As such, time prices fell by 16.7 percent. For the time it took to earn enough money to purchase one CPI basket in January 2000, a consumer could purchase 1.2 baskets in December 2025—an abundance increase of 20 percent.

Notably, categories such as housing, food and beverages, new cars, household furnishings, and clothing all increased in money prices; however, after adjusting for rising wages, they all became more affordable in time-price terms. Although 10 of the 14 items rose in nominal prices over the 25-year period, only five had higher time prices when accounting for the 131.1 percent increase in hourly wages.

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

Summary: Early household robots like NEO may look unimpressive today, but they have great long-term potential. As birth rates fall and the burdens of parenting loom large, technologies that reduce everyday household labor could make family life far more manageable. Just as past innovations transformed domestic work and reshaped society, robotic housekeepers may one day help free time and ease parenthood.

The debut of the robot butler NEO has drawn widespread ridicule. Unable to perform many chores without a remote human operator, the machine has become a target of social media backlash. Videos circulating online show the robot struggling with basic tasks, such as closing a dishwasher.

But don’t underestimate the potential of robotic housekeepers just yet.

The technology is dawning at an opportune time. Consider the growing concerns about plummeting birth rates. Last year saw the lowest fertility rate ever recorded in the United States, below 1.6 children per woman.

Could robots help to reverse the trend by relieving the burden of household drudgery associated with child-rearing?

The question has broad implications because the United States’ low fertility is no anomaly. Global fertility decline is speeding up, doubling between the 2000s and 2010s and again this decade. This means the world’s population will almost certainly peak earlier than experts projected, and at a much lower level. Many countries are contemplating expensive taxpayer-funded efforts to spark a new baby boom, despite the poor track record of such policies.

There is much disagreement on what caused the 1950s baby boom, but one theory is that the rise of time-saving technologies played a key role. Between the 1920s and 1950s, domestic responsibilities were transformed as the number of households equipped with electric appliances, including refrigerators, stoves, vacuums and washing machines, rose dramatically. The new machines lessened the burden of household labor, freeing up time and making parenthood easier.

In the present era, technology is once again freeing up more time for many people, and not just by reducing commute times through remote or hybrid work. While reading about the latest breakthroughs, one might get the impression that machines are only learning to perform enjoyable and creative tasks, such as writing or drawing, rather than tending to the menial household chores that many would prefer to automate. One internet user expressed the sentiment this way: “I don’t want AI to do my art so I can do my laundry and dishes. I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so I can do my art.” Many would gladly welcome Rosey the robot maid into their homes.

The potential of technology to free humanity from the burden of household labor deserves more attention. Perhaps no group would benefit more than parents. The more children one has, the more laundry piles up and dishes fill the sink.

Various companies are racing to offer the public affordable robots to do housework. Robotic housekeepers might be here sooner than you think — even if NEO is seemingly not yet able to live up to its creator’s vision of a robot butler able to effortlessly empty the dishwasher, water house plants and do other chores. Tesla’s Optimus robot can fold laundry and take out the garbage, among other tasks. There are even robots that can wash dishes as fast as a human can.

If such technologies become widely available, everyday life will be far easier, and so will parenthood.

There are already robotic lawn mowers. In fact, a 2025 survey found that 13% of U.S. homes own a robotic lawn mower. And robot vacuums have become so common as to be unremarkable. In the United States, 15% of households now own a robotic vacuum, according to a YouGov poll. In the United Kingdom, one in 10 households owns one, while one in seven households reportedly plans to buy one within the next 12 months.

I remember when my family purchased a robot vacuum. We watched, mesmerized, as it zigzagged across the nursery carpet. Our toddler oohed and followed it around. Our awe reminded me of a touching account of a grandmother who had painstakingly scrubbed clothes by hand her whole life and then watched with wonder as her new laundry machine completed the task for her. One of the reasons I have more children than most is that I’m a techno-optimist, and I believe that my children will inherit a world with less toil and more joy. (My husband and I are expecting our fourth child.)

Of course, outsourcing all household chores to robots wouldn’t guarantee higher fertility. One lesson from the history of demographic forecasting is the need for humility.

After all, birth rates have dropped faster than demographers anticipated. But one thing is clear: Technological advancements have the potential to raise the standard of living, free up time and allow people to pursue their dreams. For many, this means having children.

This article was originally published at Deseret News on 11/29/2025.