An hour of work buys 8% more than in 1978. For school and childcare it buys 64% less.
Prices and pay both rose a lot since 1978. What matters is which prices rose faster than a paycheck. Measured in hours of work, most of the basket got cheaper. A few big household costs did not.
Your guess first
In September 1978 one hour of average pay paid for one “unit” of tuition and childcare. How many hours of average pay does that same unit cost in September 2026?
Move the start year. Flip the view.
The whole map: tap a cell
Change in the hours of work an item costs, by start year. Red means it takes more work time than then; green means less. Tap a cell to load it above.
All data used (September of each year, index points)
Sources and method
Prices: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index, not seasonally adjusted, 1982-84 = 100 (except tuition, school fees and childcare: Dec 1977 = 100), through September 2026: all items (CPIAUCNS), shelter (CUUR0000SAH1), medical care (CPIMEDNS), gasoline, all types (CUUR0000SETB01), tuition, other school fees and childcare (CUUR0000SEEB). Pay: average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees, total private (AHETPI), $5.97 in Sep 1978 and $32.60 in Sep 2026.
I tried the BLS website directly but it returned an access error (HTTP 403), so every series was read from FRED, the St. Louis Fed database that republishes the BLS data: fred.stlouisfed.org. The October 2025 CPI value is missing in the source and is bridged in the chart. Hours of work = price change divided by pay change, compared in the same month. The tuition and childcare index mixes two things and does not track quality; pay is for production and nonsupervisory workers, not every household. This is an educational comparison, not financial advice.