Paid by silver, by gold or by fiat - a historical comparison

What if you had started a new job in 2001 and had been given the choice to be paid by silver, paid by gold, or paid in fiat? Let's take a look from 2001 to 2010.

This chart is comparing paid by fiat (US dollar) versus paid by silver using a raise of 3% a year. The paid by silver fiat equivalent adjustment was calculated using January historical silver price average for each year.

Year	Worker One (paid by fiat)	Worker Two (paid by silver)	Fiat Equivalent
2001	$1000	214.59 ounces	$1000
2002	$1030	221.03 ounces	$994.64
2003	$1060.90	227.66 ounces	$1095.04
2004	$1092.73	234.49 ounces	$1477.10
2005	$1125.51	241.52 ounces	$1596.45
2006	$1159.28	248.77 ounces	$2276.25
2007	$1194.06	256.23 ounces	$3289.99
2008	$1229.88	263.92 ounces	$4212.16
2009	$1266.77	271.84 ounces	$3069.07
2010	$1304.77	280 ounces	$4981.20

Note our paid by silver worker had two down years, 2002 and 2009. Note also that the paid by silver worker ends up earning almost 500% more than the "fiat" worker over 10 years. A paid by gold worker would have earned less than the paid by silver worker but paid by gold is infinitely preferable to paid by fiat.

Union leaders could actually offer up the workers at no raise, as long as the workers are paid by silver or paid by gold the raise is built in.