The information acquired by Finbold.com shows the average working hours necessary for a U.S. worker to acquire a single share of the S&P 500 index since 1860. Surprisingly, now it is at the highest point in 160 years. The previous all-time high was reached on before the year 2000 with the dotcom bubble that saw hundreds of internet-related companies reaching all-time highs. The lowest point in the last 22 years has been during the 2009 financial crisis. However, the most interesting thing about it is related to the fact that the average working hours to buy an S&P 500 share is 30.9.
Workers need to work much longer to acquire inflated goods and services
Since the early 1990’s that the average U.S. worker must work more than 30.9 hours in order to be able to acquire a single share of the S&P 500. One of the reasons related to this increase in the hours that workers need to access the S&P 500 could be related to the large Quantitative Easing (QE) and printing that have been promoted in the last 20 years in the United States and other countries. Furthermore, the real median weekly earnings of full-time workers measured by inflation have been stagnant since 1970. This shows that workers need to work much longer in order to acquire inflated services and goods. During the same period of time, the real GDP per capita has surged by almost 100 percent since the early ’70s. One thing is clear, countries are printing large amounts of money to face the current crisis of Coronavirus. However, this could have long-term negative effects on workers and their savings.
