One can imagine that a hamburger of the same price is "worth" more to a starving homeless person than to a very wealthy one. An allowance of five pennies a week was worth more to a child in 1902 than it is to a child today. We do acknowledge though, as Oscar Wilde pointed out in his famous quip, money worth and intrinsic worth are not necessarily same.

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892

It can be more difficult when the question is to determine the "historical" worth of something. The price, even deflated for inflation, is not enough. Was Andrew Carnegie richer than Bill Gates? Did Babe Ruth make more than Tiger Woods? Was the cost of a loaf of bread more then than now? These questions all depend on the context and the calculators on this web site enable users to make their own comparisons. We discuss these issues more in the essay Measures of Worth, which provides a methodology for deciding which measure of worth is appropriate for the subject at hand.

If you are new to this site, I recommend you look at their  User Guide.

http://www.measuringworth.com/

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