View source for Cost of Living in Ankh-Morpork

This is an article that began in the "discussion" pages of the [[Curry Gardens]] entry, which attempts to piece together what the everyday costs of living are for a typical [[Ankh-Morpork]] citizen. It's just got to be too big for its original page and has spilled over into areas which are not, strictly speaking, to do with spicy [[Klatch]]ian foodstuffs or the purveyors thereof.

This is a honest attempt to analyze the everyday economics of the Discworld and to assess how well it all fits together, using wages and costs quoted in the books. My intuition is that it will all come together, with a bit of tweaking, in surprising ways that TP never consciously intended when he thought he was plucking figures out of the air  to add background detail to the life of the city. Consider the first section, based on the given costs of a curry at the Curry Gardens, compared to the known take-home pay of a lance-constable in the Watch, using Roundworld equivalent costings as an analogue. It all fitted, spookily well..


If the starting salary for a Watchman is $30 a month, we can assume this is a dollar a day.

Somebody on a £200 a week takehome pay in Britain is effectively earning £40 a day.  (Let's assume £40 sterling equals $AM1)

A curry and rice meal from my local takeaway is around £5. This equates to the 10-15 AM pence quoted in the text.  

£5 = 12.5% of that £40 daily pay.

The "mean" value between 10p (unnamed meat curry) and 15p (curry with named meat) is 12.5 pence. 

So the watchman going to the Curry Gardens for a takeaway at the end of a shift is also paying, on average, 12.5% of his daily pay on that basic curry and rice meal... (unless he's [[Fred Colon]] and scrounging it for free}

I wonder how far other comparisons of this sort would work out? --[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 21:31, 12 June 2007 (CEST)

Hmm, as the new book {{MM}} deals with the finance and economics of [[Ankh-Morpork]], it might be interesting to expand this discussion  on the everyday economics of life in A-M and see if it all fits together. I suspect it will, in some surprising ways that TP never consciously intended. Look at the way the [[Book:The Discworld Mapp|Mappe]] of A-M came together without any need to rewrite the books, as if on some level somebody had already drawn it, and it just needed to be pulled off a shelf in the Reference section of [[L-space]]...--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 01:19, 28 September 2007 (CEST)

==Pay Rates==

''What do various levels of occupation attract by means of remuneration?''

Watch Lance-constable: $AM30 per month (prior to deductions and claimable expenses).

A "sliding scale" applies for higher ranks:- 
$AM40 for a Sergeant
$AM50+ for officers.

[[Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork]]: we know the [[Mavolio Bent|chief Cashier]] is on $AM47 per month (pay rise to $AM65 pending).

The [[Moist von Lipwig|Postmaster General]], by contrast, is paid $AM80 per month, with  food, uniform, and accommodation provided gratis. As this remains his substantive job, we should assume he remains on this pay scale while on detached service at the Royal Bank.

In {{TT}}, a general hand (unskilled labour) at [[Hobson's Livery Stable]] receives 50 pence a day - assuming a six-day week, $AM3.00  per week? 

In {{RM}}, [[Bill Door]]'s starting pay as a farm-hand is sixpence a day - although accommodation and food are provided gratis.

In {{M!!!}}, the Director of the Opera is on $AM40 per month. At the same time, [[Seldom Bucket]] offered to raise [[Walter Plinge]]'s pay to six, no, ''seven'' shiny dollars a month!! Walter was therefore on a monthly pay of five, or less, dollars, as general hand and unskilled worker? (This equates neatly to the 50p/ten shillings a day, earned by the  unskilled labourer at Hobson's). 

[[Agnes Nitt|Trainee singers and dancers]] are on "very little" (described as "less than you'd get for scrubbing floors") but get board and lodging thrown in for free. However, bonus payments are given of up to five dollars per performance if there is any sort of risk of being killed on stage, or in recompense for the trauma of seeing a fellow cast member die in the line of [[Opera House|Opera]].

Hired muscle: the going rate for [[Trolls|troll]] bodyguards is apparently two dollars per day plus walking-about-looking-mean money. (As [[Myria LeJean]] discovers in {{TOT}}).

A senior journalist on the [[Ankh-Morpork Times]] such as [[Sacharissa Cripslock]] was being paid two dollars a day, plus expenses and bonuses, by the end of {{TT}}. Sacharissa's bonuses included access to a massive wardrobe of ball gowns and her expenses included the cost of taking them in. Other journalists and staff writers were either on piece rates or a dollar a day basic. 

Domestic servants: When [[Tiffany Aching]], aged thirteen, leaves the Chalk to train as a witch in [[Lancre]], the cover-story used by the Witches is that she is going into domestic service as a Maid. Tiffany notes they have gone to some trouble to get the wage rates and working conditions sounding right. Tiffany is agreed to be worth, because of her prowess with cheese, four dollars a month, her own bed, one day off per week and a week's holiday at Hogswatch.  The text notes that three dollars a month would be underpayment, and five dollars a month just that suspicious bit too generous. 

Heretofore, in {{MM}}, was paid fofty dollars a month as Cosmo Lavish's private secretary. However, as Lavish was insane, this may be atypical. An alternative picture - given that Lavish, in his  "I am Vetinari" insanity, called his secretary Drumknott, suggests he is making a fetish of matching the wage Vetinari paid his secretary. 

A top fashion model such as [[Juliet Stollop]] ''begins'' at $AM25 for a single appearance. Glenda Sugarbean reflected that this is ''more'', for a couple of hours work, than she receives in a month as a senior cook/manager. 

===The super-rich===

[[Samuel Vimes]] was consternated to be told that, on marrying [[Sybil Ramkin]], his net worth was $AM7,000,000 ''per year''. Can this be taken as typical for the very richest in society?

(At this point another consideration to be taken into account is '''[[Creaser|taxes]]''', as [[Samuel Vimes]] is on record, in a room full of rich tax-evaders, as saying he pays his. What are the City taxes and how are they assessed?)

In {{RM}}, we hear of the wranglings between the University and the Patrician as to whether the city's ''per capita'' tax applied to wizards. This tax is explicitly described as $AM200 per head, payable in four quarterly instalments of $AM50.  Several problems emerge instantly when analysing this. For instance, [[Topsy Lavish]] implied that the majority of poorer people in Ankh-Morpork are on incomes of $AM150 a year or less for ''all'' expenses. (This estimate is supported in {{UA}}, when Glenda Sugarbean reflects that a pair of high-end fashion boots from [[Shatta]] cost $AM400 - Glenda notes this is about the average yearly income for a full family in her part of town).  A tax of $AM200 would be impractical (and uncollectable?). Also, in a city of a million people, this implies Vetinari would have an annual taxable income of $AM200,000,000. This is hardly in-keeping with the air of a great city, fallen from grace and poverty-stricken, that he very carefully projects when asked for money.  This also places a very  optimistic gloss on the willingness of AM citizens to pay tax! (Reference Carrot's patient memory-jogging session with the Dwarf bakers in {{MAA}}). Not to mention the City's ability to collect, which Vetinari concedes at the end of {{MM}} is in urgent need of review.

One would suspect that a City poll tax exists, but is very carefully gradated to reflect ability to pay - i.e., an institution such as the University, perceived to be rich, pays more for its fully graduated wizards than, say, for non-teaching staff or students. It may even be charged with collecting this on behalf of the City and handing over an agreed lump sum (the text of {{RM}} implies this). In which case other informal "honesty-box" arrangements may exist with other Guilds and institutions.

==The "general headings" for most peoples' expenditure, post-tax and deductions== 

 
===Rent and accommodation===
(including "utilities" - cost of staying warm and lit  indoors). Generally rent - not much of a mortgage market in A-M? 

In {{J}}, Mrs [[Spent]] offers [[Ossie Brunt]]'s old room at $AM2 per week: this is for an almost unfurnished room that only has a ramshackle bed in it. Oh, and a broken window.

In {{GP}}, the three members of [[the Smoking Gnu]] "rent" accommodation at the [[Post Office]] for $AM3.00 per week.  As this was to provide [[Tolliver Groat]] and [[Stanley Howler]] with some sort of subsistence income in lieu of pay they were not receiving, the assumption could be that Groat, a man who had to be worldly-wise in this respect, was charging the going rate plus some "silence money" on top, as he sensed the Gnu were not completely legitimate. 

===Food and drink===
Hhow do people eat? We've already done a comparison on the cost of a takeaway and found it costs roughly the same proportion of daily pay in Ankh-Morpork as in Manchester. But food bought in and cooked at home?

We know one [[elim]] will buy one very small potato. So a full penny - sixteen elims - might buy enough potatoes for a meal for one, perhaps two? (Assuming "small potato" might equate to "Jersey New" -  ie, about half the size of a golf ball, at their biggest).

In {{T5E}}, we discover the cost of a plucked and prepared chicken ready for cooking is $AM1 in the city. This fits, as historically chicken has always been something of a luxury meat: it's only in the last thirty years or so that poultry prices have dropped to the extent that it has become an everyday commonplace. (Comedian Spike Milligan recalls that in the 1930's, Christmas dinner was the rare treat of chicken. His family couldn't afford turkey and most weeks of the year they couldn't even afford chicken). A chicken would have been kept for the ongoing resource it provided in the form of eggs, and it would only have gone into the pot right at the very end of its life.

Out in the countryside, the availability of chicken increases and prices drop to 10 pence per bird. 

In {{TT}}, an unspecified weight of butchered rat fillets costs two pence. This must be a substantial weight, as the blood content is more than ample to satiate the primal urge of a vampire on the brink of renouncing Temperance.  As rat is a relatively cheap meat, (and as far as we know eaten only by Dwarfs)  would other available meatstuffs take their price cue from the "rat standard"? 

It's interesting that the going rate for unbutchered fresh rat carcasses is three for two pence (from the litany of grumbles made by Wee Mad Arthur, rat-catcher) and prime fillets taken from choice areas sell for as much as an entire carcass. 

In {{FOC}}, we can infer the cost of Ecstatic-One-Hundred-And-Fifty-Minutes (getting the whole of a packed Drum incapably drunk up to and including sale of pints of gin) was $AM25, less three pence in change. 

According to the [[goblin]] Regret of the Falling Leaf, one can purchase a Special Reserve Cognac from [[Quirm]] for AM$60 from [[Horrids]] on [[Broadway]], although there is a two-for-one deal at the Twister Boote's bottle shop in [[The Shades|the Shades]]- although the latter does have a slight taste of anchovy. This is surprisingly expensive, especially by Shades standards, but it is to be presumed that anything foreign is worth the extra money.

Also from {{FOC}}, there is the throwaway line that a dollar buys a loaf of bread - this is ridiculously expensive for a staple foodstuff. Perhaps this is a case of TP pulling a  figure out of the air to illustrate a point about relative affluence - ie, gnomes and pictsies can earn as much as a human, but require far less in the way of food and in any case can make a home from a hollowed out stale loaf (of dwarf bread? Must be like a prefab made out of breezeblock). Maybe TP did tghe same not as actual cost but as illustration of the principle involved when defining the Sam Vimes "Boots" theory of economic inequality  - in this, the cost of a pair of boots is also pitched unfeasibly high, as has been noted.

===Clothing===
Historically, clothing was ''always'' more expensive in previous centuries, viewed as a higher proportion of one's weekly income. The individual would own less clothes but pay more for them. 

In {{M!!!}}, the cost of a bespoke, haute couture, ballgown is given as $AM 300-500. This is hardly representative:  in {{TT}}, [[Sacharissa Cripslock]] considered $AM40 was at the top end of her budget. Similarly, the disgusting and  loathsome [[Crispin Horsefry]], surely the Disc's first proto-Yuppie, spends $AM100 ''on a single shirt'' - because he ''can'', not because the shirt is in any justifiable sense worth $100. A pair of ''really expensive'' fashion boots for Dwarfs costs $AM400 from [[Shatta]]. 

In {{M}}, we meet the landlord of  [[The Quene's Head/Duke's Head]], and discover that he is considered affluent because he owns two shirts (one green, one yellow). 

In {{MAA}}, we learn of the [[Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice]]:  a ''really'' good pair of boots might be bought for $AM50. However, on a watchman's pay, even an officer's, he might struggle to get a "cheap" pair for $AM10....

The cost of a new gentleman's suit, with a spare pair of trousers possibly thrown in, is quoted in the early pages of {{RM}} as being $7. (As Ridcully points out, though, this is on the cheap side).  

But then, there's always the [[Soon Shine Sun|Shonky Shop]], for items of clothing that look nostalgically back on the days when they were merely second-hand...

====Underwear====
[[Lu-Tze]], in {{TOT}}, informs us that Mrs.[[Marietta Cosmopilite]], in accordance with the ''koan'' ''"Wrap up warm, or you'll catch your death"'',  will do bespoke long johns, described as ''double-knit combinations, silk on the inside, then three layers of wool, with two handy trapdoors'' for $AM6 a pair, as he's an old and valued customer. However, she apparently can't turn a heel worth a damn. No prices are yet quoted for the products constructed for ladies who need to watch their figures, those who are perhaps more pint glass than hourglass, by [[Burleigh and Spoke]].

===Necessary bills===
No state schools - therefore school fees for all children. 
*''Contingencies'': I'm assuming there is neither an NHS nor a welfare state in Ankh-Morpork. This heading might cover doctors' bills/general medical, dental (such as it is)

Some occupations, such as Watchman, come with free medical care, in the  form of an [[Igor]], and occasional recourse to Dr. [[John Lawn|Lawn]] where this is needed. Assassins have a retained [[Doctor]] at their [[Assassins' Guild|Guild]], but Assassination is an occupation that might be considered that of a self-employed professional, or providing a pocket-money second income to a gentleman who is already well provided for and would be expected to meet his own medical expenses privately. 

Like officers in certain upscale Army regiments, who are expected to be gentlemen of independent means, the official pay would just be small change and very few would rely on this alone for some sort of a living income. This last point is borne out in {{MR}}, where it has been calculated that the official salary of a very junior officer (in the Borogravian Army at least) is approximately seven  AM shillings per day (subject to rates of exhange and the fact that the Borogravian currency is considered to be "fiat money" by the rest of the Disc's banking experts). This is a pay of AM$28-30 per month - on a par with an Ankhian Watchman, and surely not something an officer and a gentleman should be expected to live on alone!  

(''Economics Note: "Fiat Money"'':- Money whose declared value is unsupported by  the usual sort of economic indicators, ie high GDP, balance of payment surplus, gold and currency reserves, desirable export goods. For instance, the old Soviet Union unilaterally declared the exchange rate of the rouble to the dollar was 1:1, where had the Soviet currency been allowed to find its own worth on the capitalist money markets, the true exchange rate might have been 60:1. By decree - '''''fiat''''' - , the Soviets artificially inflated the worth of their currency sixty-fold, but could only really enforce this where the Russian writ ran - the Warsaw Pact states, North Korea, Cuba, and any luckless visitors to the USSR who had to exchange at the official rate. When you know what you're looking for, Borogravian money in {{MR}} is a fiat currency - worth its face value only where this can be enforced,  and because the Duchess has decreed it to be so. Fiat currencies are usually the last brute-force method of maintaining some sort of economic stability and staving off final collapse when all else has failed, or an economy has been fatally wounded by  internal collapse, prolonged war, or consistently faulty economic assumptions.  Regard modern Zimbabwe, inter-war Germany, or Nazi Germany in the last couple of years of WW2, having unaccountably made all its neighbours into implacable enemies and needing to pay the fabulous costs of total war.)  

In {{MAA}}, the cost of a month's education at the Spiteful Sisters of [[Seven-Handed Sek]] Charity School  is given as $AM2.00.  Therefore yearly fees at a typical school - i.e., one accessible to ordinary people &ndash; might be no more than $AM24 per year.

===Entertainment===
What do you do with your free time?

A box at the opera is $AM50 per performance, but the stalls will be cheaper. 

In {{MM}} the [[Chief Cashier]] says that a penny can buy you a seat at the theatre for a hour. It is unknown what theatre he means, or whether he's just being poetic.

Entry to the [[Odium]] to watch {{MP}} cost 5p, later increased to 10p. On a par with the music hall?

A [[Twopenny Upright]] is slang for a very basic service from a Seamstress, although it is very likely that while the term remains in current slang, the basic service costs a little bit more than that. Perhaps a broad-minded researcher could locate a price list?

Mrs [[Evadne Cake]] provides two levels of mediumistic intercession with the future and the next world. Tenpence buys you what she sees. A dollar pays for what actually happens.

===Savings?=== 
Or would saving in a "funeral club" count as a deduction prior to receiving bulk residue of pay?  

We now know from {{MM}} that the [[Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork]] offers interest on small bank accounts, which must over time add to sources of income for account-holders. 

===[[Public transportation|Travel]]===

A cab fare from the [[Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork]] to [[Elm Street]] is eleven pence. ({{MM}}) It is informally expected a horse cab driver be tipped no less than 10%. ({{CAM}}) 

The coach fare from [[Ankh-Morpork]] to [[Lancre]] is $AM50 ($AM40 is a [[Bandits' Guild]] surcharge). ({{LL}})

And now, of course, there are the horse omnibuses, the troll cars from {{UA}}, and golem horses from {{SN}} to price into the picture!

A wider picture is provided in {{CAM}}: the short route from Sator Square to Dolly Sisters is charged at 2p. It is not unreasonable to suggest multiples of 2p are charged for progressively longer distances. 

The night bus from Ankh-Morpork to Sto Lat charges a single fare of two dollars fifty pence.

Troll taxis (effectively a sedan chair attached to the back of a troll) are charged at approximately double the cost of a bus journey over a comparable distance, although fares into the Shades are surcharged because of the graffiti problem. {{CAM}}

===Miscellaneous===

We learn from the [[Yeti|yeti]]-hunters in {{TOT}} that the feet alone of a Yeti can be resold, for certain Agatean medical preparations, for $AM1,000. The pelt is worth an additional $AM900.

The accepted salary threshold, below which a person is deemed too impecunious to be able to afford the sort of personalised, indeed bespoke, service, offered by the [[Assassins' Guild]], is $AM10,000. Those earning below this yearly income may sometimes come to the notice of the Guild, but many assassins won't bother getting out of bed for small change of this nature.  They are certainly thought of as only just being able to afford the Guild's services, if their income is at, or only just exceeds, this level.

In fairness, the cheapest inhumation on the Guild books is the contract out on Corporal [[Nobby Nobbs]] of the Watch. Including the mandatory 50% Guild Tax, this stands at $AM1.00. (This is only nominal, as no self-respecting Assassin would work for so little, especially if it involves a high risk of being shouted at by Sam Vimes.)

Lord [[de Worde]] believed that anyone earning less than $1,000 per year was by inference a member of the criminal classes. 

In {{J}}, the cost of a [[Dis-organiser]], being as it is the product of advanced technomancy, is $300.

In {{TT}}, Otto Chriek expresses a desire for the top-of-the-range Agatean iconograph, which has the equivalent of an SLR lens (the demon has a telescopic seat allowing him to get right up close for ''really'' fine detail), together with other buzzers and flashing lights. This is $AM780.

The perfume from [[Quirm]], Cedar Fragrance Pour Hommes, is available for AM$15 a pop.

==Information to be added==

We should diligently  extract examples of given wages and costs from the books, list them under expenditure and income,  and see if they stack up.--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 12:02, 7 November 2007 (CET)

[[Category: Discworld culture]]
[[de:Ankh-Morpork Dollar]]