Contrast the ideas of nominal and real GDP. Why is one more reliable than the other for comparing changes in the standard of living over a series of years? Compare 1980 and 2020, using one of the methods I’ve explained below. Which do you think would be the better year and why? There are two ways to do the comparison, and I don’t care which you choose: One is to find the data for each year from a search engine and compare them. Another is to find the nominal GDP for each year and use the Price Index for the year according to BEA and multiply the index by the base for each year. This converts them to real GDP and then you can compare them.