Hacker News Reader

Comment by beautifulfreak | Hacker News Reader

There seems to be an error: "The family’s annual food bill was $80 a month." For a person earning $1.50 per day, that would have been a whopping monthly food bill.

View on HN

Historically, the price of food was much higher than it is now. Thank our farmers for operating more efficient year after year.

https://mjperry.blogspot.nl/2010/07/as-share-of-income-ameri...

You are right that modern technology has figured out how to turn energy into soil (way oversimplified!), and that probably 80% of the nitrogen in the bodies of any of us reading this came from the Haber process.

However, it still sounds bizarre that about 90% of their expenses was food.

"Annual" and "a month" are mutually exclusive, so (at least) one in that sentence must be in error.

Might be like the modern SaaS - advertised as a monthly price but you need to pay for the entire year to get that price.

It isn't totally off-base. Even today, the poorest consumers in middle-income countries spend 70-80% of their income on food.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/interactives/how-do-people-in-...

In the UK I'd be suprised if like us most of the income of other poorer people didn't go to landlords/banks through rent/mortgage payment?

It may appear for those in state housing that food is their greatest outlay but that would only be if accommodation provided by welfare wasn't classed as "income".

In Twain's position, and time, would food have certainly been the greatest outlay?

However, it still sounds bizarre that about 90% of their expenses was food.

For two adults and five children? If you're working class, it'll cost a good chunk even today (barring state subsidies).

$1.50 per day is about $45 per month, $80 per month would be 175% of income, so I'd hope that there was a second income earner in the family.

I think the error is the 'per month' part. $80 per year matches pretty well with a daily wage of $1.50, and a monthly housing cost of $6. It would work out to over 20% of their annual budget being allocated to food, which while higher than today, historically seems to match.

> However, it still sounds bizarre that about 90% of their expenses was food.

What do you think being poor is?

As someone who grew up incredibly impoverished it's not bizarre to me. Sounds a bit high, but not terribly so. Rent and food together frequently were more than 100% of my mom's income. We relied heavily on food charity.

Efficiently collecting subsidy.

Nonsense. Here in NL our farmers could operate much more efficiently if it wasn’t for subsidies and the regulations that come with it. It’s not free money, it’s mostly a bandaid for wounds inflicted by the government. How would you feel if the government decided you can’t use your computer anymore and have to back to programming with punchcards? Farmers have to live with rules like this every day.

The whole sentence is illogical as 'annual' implies 'per year'.

I think it means average cost per month.

Basically what they say is that yearly spend was $960, and then present it as per-month-cost, but I can imagine food prices varied quite a bit with the seasons back then, so that true spend at any given month could be quite a bit different from this average.

Then why not say "The family’s food bill was $80 a month."

I would have thought food prices were less seasonally dependent than they are now, on the grounds that out-of-season food simply didn't exist (outside of preserves that were made during a seasonal glut).

An avocado in a British supermarket costs about 90p right now. In season, you can normally get at least three of them for that money. Similar price changes occur for soft fruit etc.

100 years ago (even 50 years ago), your diet, rather than your food budget, would have been the thing that changed with the seasons to match availability.

Someting is off with the food prices. Multiplying the other amounts by 100 yields reasonable comparisons to todays prices:

$485 - mens suit

$8000 - NYC rent

$150/day - working person salary

$600 - rural rent

$35/lb butter

$40/dozen eggs

Edit: Obviously misread the comment I replied to.

You need to buy your butter and eggs elsewhere if you think these are reasonable comparisons to today's prices.

> > Someting is off with the food prices.

That caught my eye too. I'd wager it was closer to $8/month based on the other figures provided.

I know back in the late 70s/early 80s my grandmother talked about buying a sack of flour, bags of beans, tubs of butter, and similar staple foods for pennies each, and that would have been the 1930s.

the article says 80 a year

Reply on news.ycombinator.com