As I was waiting in line at the grocery store this week, I eyed the candy bars, as I often do. I didn't buy anything, but the thought occurred to me that if we earn money based on how much we work, then the goods that we buy are paid with the hours of our lives. It's kind of like the concept for the terrible, terrible movie In Time, but less literal.
Anyway, the average price of a single serving package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in 2011 was $1.14 (it's harder to find historical candy prices than you might think). Using income data from the same year (which is much easier to get a hold of), I did some basic calculations and figured out the following statistics: for someone with just a high school diploma, a package of Reese's costs just shy of five minutes of their life; for someone with a bachelor's degree, it costs slightly more than three minutes; and for a person with a master's degree, it costs about two and a half minutes. At the very bottom, someone making minimum wage would pay nearly 9 minutes for the same treat.
While I know that I'm not the first person to think of money as a representation of time worked, it was kind of a fun to see how it breaks down. I do wonder if this knowledge would have affected my candy purchases when I was a teenager, though I highly doubt it.
1 comment:
This is a good question to ask about most things we buy with our time, not just commodities, but also activities. Is it worthy the time investment.
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