Interesting that he compares everything that is hard to compare but ignores one thing that would be very easy - rental pricing. You had to pay it then and you have to pay it now.
"four bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a “nice outlook on green.” The rent was £90 for a year."
According to one CPI calculator (https://www.in2013dollars.com) "£90 in 1919 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £4,951.54 today" and "£700 in 1919 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £38,511.97 today".
Google search also reveals that average yearly wage in London in 1920 was £205 and average wage in London in 2021 was £53,700 so £700 income in 1919 was 3.5 times the average which in 2021 would be £187,950 (quite a bit more than "equivalent in purchasing power to about £38,511.97 today").
A quick web search for 4 bedroom apartment (not sure about sitting rooms) in London shows that rent is between £2,000 and £8,000 per month - let's say £5,000 for a nice one like what Christie's sounds like which is £60,000 per year.
They paid £90/£700 = 13% of their (3.5 the average) annual income for rent and now the equivalent rent would be £60,000/£187,950 = 32% of the 3.5 the average annual income.
Even just comparing the plain average income, person in 1919 could rent the same apartment and still have £205 - £90 = £115 to live on for the year (which seems possible considering maid lived on £36 per year but in 2021 the average income leaves you £53,700 - £60,000 = £6,300 short on the rent alone.
So ignoring the tvs, computers, holidays, cars, healthcare and all the things that we cannot compare and comparing what we can, it is obvious that just to live in 2021 we need more money that what we are making and so it is easy to see how most people feel that the living standards have gone down.
That still doesn't seem like an "easy" comparison.
Rents tend to be tied to the infrastructure/facilities and earnings potential within a given radius of the property.
1919 London was dirty with terrible air quality (far worse than Beijing or Mumbai today, literally choked my great grandmother to death on a bad day) and with nowhere near the infrastructure or work opportunities it has today.
A fairer comparison to 1919 London would be a hypothetical working class town where the primary employers are steel mills and environmental standards are simply unenforced.
Sure, there are many ways that my simple (not easy) comparison is short changing current London but if you want to live there now and make the average wage then it may not matter to you so much that air quality is better or that streets are cleaner (because everywhere in the UK that is also true) when you cannot afford an apartment in the location that you would have been able to 100 years ago.
If we afford this nuance to a rising rent -- that its value depends on surrounding infrastructure -- why do economists treat rising wages as a "disease"? It seems to me that the average violinist has become more productive, because their audience will apply their improved well being to greater economic benefit than 100 years ago. They are providing a desired input to an improved infrastructure, just as an old apartment in a hot neighborhood.
Indeed, this seemed to indicate that the rent has increased disproportionately. The article mentions that the rent would cost $500 in today's dollars. That's very cheap for 4 bedroom apartment everywhere in western world, especially in London.
Maybe that car was really rubbish by today's standards and technology-wise therefore it is expected that now the real costs have come down. But with apartments I don't think there is that much of an improvement that justify average increase from $500 to $5000.
It looks like the flat she referred to still exists, Addison Park Mansions in Hammersmith. So we can make quite good comparison presuming one is rented out still. Though I wouldn't be suprised if they've been parted out into smaller flats, or rented as shared.
Funnily enough I'm sat in my flat about 10 minutes walk away. My building appears to have been built sometime in the late 1800s, and is somewhat falling apart. So the value for money might be even less now.
What's more interesting, is that somehow very few new nice areas (towns, cities) have been built. Take almost any area in London with anything built after the 1950s, and in many cases the new buildings make the area far worse, not better. Kensington is still the size it was, and there are hardly any new Kensingtons available - and a lot less affordable for an average professional.
London is wealthy enough for there to be no 'bad areas'.
> So ignoring the tvs, computers, holidays, cars, healthcare and all the things that we cannot compare and comparing what we can, it is obvious that just to live in 2021 we need more money that what we are making and so it is easy to see how most people feel that the living standards have gone down.
The thing is, you can live today without all of that and your living costs would be comparable to Christie's.
A house without electricity, centralized heating, safety regulations of today will cost far less to rent, if you can find one that is.
Today's housing comes batteries included with all of that so it will be more expensive. People might feel their standards of living going down but if they were to spend a week in a 1919 house they'd be much more grateful.
"four bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a “nice outlook on green.” The rent was £90 for a year."
According to one CPI calculator (https://www.in2013dollars.com) "£90 in 1919 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £4,951.54 today" and "£700 in 1919 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £38,511.97 today".
Google search also reveals that average yearly wage in London in 1920 was £205 and average wage in London in 2021 was £53,700 so £700 income in 1919 was 3.5 times the average which in 2021 would be £187,950 (quite a bit more than "equivalent in purchasing power to about £38,511.97 today").
A quick web search for 4 bedroom apartment (not sure about sitting rooms) in London shows that rent is between £2,000 and £8,000 per month - let's say £5,000 for a nice one like what Christie's sounds like which is £60,000 per year. They paid £90/£700 = 13% of their (3.5 the average) annual income for rent and now the equivalent rent would be £60,000/£187,950 = 32% of the 3.5 the average annual income.
Even just comparing the plain average income, person in 1919 could rent the same apartment and still have £205 - £90 = £115 to live on for the year (which seems possible considering maid lived on £36 per year but in 2021 the average income leaves you £53,700 - £60,000 = £6,300 short on the rent alone.
So ignoring the tvs, computers, holidays, cars, healthcare and all the things that we cannot compare and comparing what we can, it is obvious that just to live in 2021 we need more money that what we are making and so it is easy to see how most people feel that the living standards have gone down.