An hour of work buys about 500,000 times more light than it did two centuries ago.

500,000x

more artificial light per hour of work than in 1800 (Nordhaus)

Comparing lumen-hours of light an average worker can afford from one hour of labour, candles and tallow in 1800 versus modern LED lighting. Roughly a 500,000-fold increase.

Why this is happening

In 1800 light meant candles or whale oil, so an hour of work bought only a brief, dim glow.
Gas, then the filament bulb, then fluorescent tubes and finally LEDs each cut the energy and cost per unit of light by orders of magnitude.
Wages rose at the same time, so the same hour of labour commands vastly more light today.

The take

Real progress the price indices never capture. Standard inflation data treats a candle and an LED as the same line item, hiding gains this large.

Source: William Nordhaus, Our World in Data