Measuring Worth Is a Complicated Question

Intrinsic things are priceless: the love of your life, or a beautiful sunset. There is no objective way to measure these, nor should there be.

The worth of monetary transactions is also difficult to measure. While there is a price, wage, or other kind of transaction that can be recorded at a precise price, the worth of the amount must be interpreted.

The price of a hamburger is probably worth more to a starving homeless person than to a very wealthy one. An allowance of five pennies a week was worth more to a child in 1902 than it is to a child today.

It can be more difficult when the question is to determine the "historical" worth of something. The price, even deflated for inflation, is not enough. Was Andrew Carnegie richer than Bill Gates? Did Babe Ruth make more than Tiger Woods? Was the cost of a loaf of bread more then than now? These questions all depend on the context and the calculators on this web site enable users to make their own comparisons.

As a guide to users of our calculators, we present here Measures of Worth. This essay provides a methodology for deciding which measure of worth is appropriate for the subject at hand.