how can $8 I’m 1850 be $300 now how does that work and how do we math that.
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It gets a little convoluted when you go back that far because what people were buying and what was even available to buy has changed so dramatically. The relative price of food has plummeted thanks to mechanized agriculture, but the price of a horse has gone insane.
So rather than try to work out inflation between 1850 and 2023 directly, it’s best to do it in year-by-year increments.
What did a loaf of bread cost last year? What does it cost now? How about a gallon of milk, or a used car, or 10kWh of electricity?
The world’s governments keep track of this information to calculate their inflation rates year over year, and they (usually) try to manipulate policy to keep it within a target range.
You look back over these government reports over the last two centuries and can come up with a total inflation rate since 1850 – but again this value is kinda useless because so much else has changed.
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