xkcd points out the importance of considering the baseline when making comparisons:
Analyze, visualize, and communicate data usefully, beyond the defaults.
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Calculating how much money a kid gets after exchanging all twenty baby teeth.
How good or bad something is depends on what you compare against.
In the 1950s, almost half of all employed people were either in farming or manufacturing. As you can imagine, work changed a bit over the years.
More money on average means bigger houses, more expensive cars, and fancier restaurants. But what if you look at relative spending instead of total dollars?