Historical price comparison
How cheap was everyday life 19 years ago?
“Everything used to be cheaper,” they like to say and often hear. The star has calculated how expensive life used to be.
Everything becomes more expensive! The feeling is right first. In fact, the prices for many offers have increased in recent years.
19 years ago, RTL recorded prices for many things in everyday life. At that time, employees of the broadcaster stated in random samples, which, for example, had to pay for a kebab or a cinema card.
This year, these samples have been repeated in the same places in the Cologne area. The results enable a historical price comparison apart from statistical surveys by a federal authority.
The mistake of the Germans
Everyday consumption has become more expensive. At the same time, wages have also increased. From 2006 to 2024, the Germans were able to look forward to a gross earnings plus of an average of 59 percent. Consumer prices have only increased by 44 percent in the same period.
“The development of the past few years has actually been positive. The merits have increased more than consumer prices,” confirms Kathrin Kann, head of the “Significance, over -indebtedness” at the Federal Statistical Office in conversation with the star.
Her colleague Karsten Sandhop, head of the department “Methods and Communication in Price Statistics” at the Federal Office, explains why we do not notice that as a consumer: “In relation to the price development, there is a psychological effect that people perceive losses more than profits. ‘Pain’ about price rising is greater than the joy if something has become cheaper.”
However, very few make this calculation when you are at the kebab shop or the swimming pool checkout again and think: In the past, everything was so much cheaper.
In the video, RTL shows the price comparison on Tuesday from 10:35 p.m. on TV and on RTL+. The star belongs to RTL Germany.
Source: Stern
