An hour of work buys about 500,000 times more light than it did two centuries ago.

Name: An hour of work buys about 500,000 times more light than it did two centuries ago.
Creator: William Nordhaus, Our World in Data
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

500,000x

more artificial light per hour of work than in 1800 (Nordhaus)

Comparing lumen-hours of light an average worker can afford from one hour of labour, candles and tallow in 1800 versus modern LED lighting. Roughly a 500,000-fold increase.

Why this is happening

In 1800 light meant candles or whale oil, so an hour of work bought only a brief, dim glow.
Gas, then the filament bulb, then fluorescent tubes and finally LEDs each cut the energy and cost per unit of light by orders of magnitude.
Wages rose at the same time, so the same hour of labour commands vastly more light today.

The take

Real progress the price indices never capture. Standard inflation data treats a candle and an LED as the same line item, hiding gains this large.

Source: William Nordhaus, Our World in Data

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<a href="https://macrosnaps.app/c/cost-of-light">
  <img src="https://macrosnaps.app/charts/cost-of-light.png" alt="Comparing lumen-hours of light an average worker can afford from one hour of labour, candles and tallow in 1800 versus modern LED lighting. Roughly a 500,000-fold increase." width="640" style="max-width:100%;height:auto">
</a>
<p style="font:12px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif;color:#6b7280;max-width:640px">
  Chart: <a href="https://macrosnaps.app/c/cost-of-light">MacroSnaps</a>,
  <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>. Source: William Nordhaus, Our World in Data.
</p>

Cite it

Cites MacroSnaps for the chart. For the numbers themselves, cite the source below.

MacroSnaps (2026). "An hour of work buys about 500,000 times more light than it did two centuries ago." Edition No. 09, 14 July 2026. https://macrosnaps.app/c/cost-of-light

Permanent link: https://macrosnaps.app/c/cost-of-light

The underlying data

MacroSnaps drew this chart. The numbers in it are published by William Nordhaus, Our World in Data. Their terms, not ours, govern the underlying data.