A price is a dollar amount.
The nominal price is what the item cost in that period. A larger number alone doesn’t tell you whether it took more work to buy it.
TimePrice / A little perspective on everyday prices
Prices change.
What matters is what they cost you.
A higher price tag doesn’t tell the whole story. Explore what everyday goods cost in dollars, purchasing power, and minutes of work.
Same item.
Different decades.
One useful perspective.
01 / Historical explorer
What did it really cost?
Benchmark: average gross earnings of U.S. private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees. Not median or take-home pay.
The longer view
Work time over the years
View chart data as a table
| Period | Price | Hourly earnings | Work minutes | Units per hour |
|---|
Your perspective / optional
What does it cost at your hourly pay?
Use the latest available product price with your current gross hourly pay.
/ hr
Stays in this page’s memory.
Never saved or included in share links.
02 / Technology lens
What about technology?
TVs, computers, phones, and more. Compare changes in prices and work time.
Technology improves as prices change. BLS indexes track category prices while accounting for quality changes. Combining them with earnings shows percentage changes in work time. For dollar prices and actual minute amounts, enter an illustrative starting price below.
Price index Work-time indexStarting period = 100 for both
$
This is your assumption, not a verified BLS retail price. Stays in page memory.
Technology source & exact observations
03 / Scenario Lab
A $180 Coke. More expensive?
That depends on what you earn. Change the numbers and see why.
Try a scenario
Fictional prices and earnings for the same quantity of an item. This lab does not estimate historical Coke prices or adjust for inflation.
A useful lens.
Not the whole picture.
Inflation changes the yardstick.
The CPI-adjusted figure restates an earlier price in the comparison period’s dollars. It uses general consumer inflation, not the inflation rate of this particular item.
Time price brings pay into view.
Divide a product’s price by hourly earnings, then multiply by 60. The result is minutes of gross work per unit. Fewer minutes means less work on this measure.
Cheaper eggs don’t mean life is cheaper.
Housing, healthcare, childcare, taxes, and other expenses matter. Average wages don’t describe every worker. Retail price samples and product mix also change. These comparisons answer a narrow question about one item, not whether households are better off overall.
How the calculations work
Minutes of work
60 × price ÷ hourly earningsPurchasing capacity
hourly earnings ÷ priceMeasured in product units per hour of gross work.
Change in work time
(minutes B ÷ minutes A − 1) × 100General inflation adjustment
price A × CPI B ÷ CPI AMonthly comparisons use the same calendar month. Annual comparisons use arithmetic means of all 12 monthly prices, earnings, and CPI values, then apply the formulas above. Price and work-time comparisons need 12 prices and wages; inflation restatements also need 12 CPI observations. The annual time price is a ratio of annual means, not a mean of monthly ratios.
All displayed series are not seasonally adjusted. Calculations use source precision; only displayed results are rounded. Lines break where an observation is missing. No missing value is estimated.
Evidence you can follow
Public data. Clear definitions. No hidden assumptions.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · Versioned snapshot · No live-data claims