…shopping online raises the price for the gifts by nearly $9,500.
Overall the "nine ladies dancing" cost no more than last year, but the "eight maids a-milking" are governed by the increase in the federal minimum wage. Here is much more information about the gifts and what they cost. Perhaps for environmental reasons, the inflationary pressure in the index comes from the swans:
Swans, which vary widely in price because of their scarcity, have
caused big swings in the index. The gift package this year would shoot
up to $21,080.10 if the swans were included because the going price for
the seven is $5,600. That is a 33 percent increase, or $1,400, for the
swans compared with the price last year.
We really should only report the twelve days index excluding swans as the Core Twelve Days Index – Christmas (Core TDI-C).
So it looks like they are only counting each day’s gifts only once? The lyrics of the song seem to indicate that each day the gifts from the day before are doubled, so on the 2nd day of christmas the singer has 2 partridges and 2 pear trees plus 2 turtle doves, then on the third day they have 3 partridges, 3 pear trees, 4 turtle doves and 3 french hens, etc.
Not that it matters, really.
Wouldn’t the eight maids a milking be officially classified as agricultural workers and thus would be exempt from the minimum wage?
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