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Do the idiots at the National Employment Law Project realize that...
1] CPI-U is nonsense; and
2] Demographics of the US have changed; and
3] Population distribution of the US has changed; and
4] Women were not part of the workforce, thus less competition for jobs, a lower E-Pop Ratio and a lower LFP Ratio
....makes their graph invalid?
Women were not fully integrated into the work-force until ~1996-97, and that took about 25 years starting about the mid-1970s.
Did the morons at the National Employment Law Project mention that America did not become a 2-car family until 1974? That's when more than 50% of households had at least 2 cars. I'm guessing they forgot to mention that....and all of the other associated and related changes in standard of living.
I didn't realize that. Now that I do realize that I don't care. Don't expect me to walk into the nearest Soylent Green factory anytime soon. I earned what I made working my entire life.
As a baby boomer, I also realize that my parents raised me in a 1500 square foot house. My brother and I shared a room till we were teens. We had one car. Mom stayed home and Dad worked 60 hours a week. We had one TV in the house, and three channels. We had two phones however - one in the kitchen and one in the master bedroom. We had no cell phones, no video games, no cable TV, no VCRs.
I had a pair of Sunday shoes, a pair of loafers, and a pair of tennis shoes. All three kids shared one bathroom with a single sink. Eating out was a special treat, not an every day occurrence. We went on one family vacation a year - all in one vehicle. That's right - three kids in the backseat together on a road trip.
When I was ten, I started working in yards with my brother for money. By twelve, I was babysitting for cash. When I turned fifteen, I started working at Burger King - that's right, for minimum wage, which was $2.15 at the time. I worked at Burger King for two summers in a row and saved my money over the summer so I'd have cash on hand during the school year. The summer of 1978 was the last time I ever earned minimum wage. The next summer, I started working in a job that offered a base pay (minimum wage) plus a commission on what I sold, and I never looked back.
We had 30 or more kids in each class. We were the largest generation ever born. We learned early on that if we didn't EXCEL -if we didn't work harder and shine brighter - we'd be lost in a crowd of mediocrity. So - we became competitive and grew to truly value a strong work ethic.
Speaking of school, kids didn't get a car when they turned 16 automatically. We rode the bus to school. When I started driving, Dad FINALLY got a second car and my mother and I shared a car - this was in 1978 and the car I shared with my mother was a 1969 Galaxy 500 Ford, with well over 300,000 miles on it.
And hey - we were solidly MIDDLE CLASS - not poor by any means. We lived in a nice neighborhood and my dad had an executive level job. But as you can see - VALUES for the concept of "middle class" were drastically different than they are today.
Us baby boomers moved out when we were 18 or 19 years old. Most of us worked our way through college as well. We were paid more than minimum wage by the time we were 19 or 20 years old because we'd already been working for four or five years by then, and actually had skills and a work ethic.
A smaller percentage of us obtained a bachelor's degree or higher - but we managed to climb the corporate ladder anyway. We knew we'd have to work long hard hours to do so - but we've always known that and been willing to do so.
Most of us bought our first home when we were around 30 - and that home was often very small. We didn't expect our first home to outshine the home our parents were still living in. We saved up our money and put a twenty percent (or more) down payment on that house. We didn't think it was fiscally responsible to buy a house with little or no money down.
We furnished our first home with garage sale finds, our parents' old furniture, and odds and ends. When we had two kids, we bought bunk beds, and we put two car seats in the back seat of the sedan - we didn't figure "OMG now we've got to buy a new vehicle and a new house so that each kid can have their own room and we can still have two living areas, a home office, and a workout room!"
And hey, I'm not complaining about a bit of it. My upbringing and my early working years laid a foundation of self confidence and a skill set that has served me well my entire life. I've worked hard but I know without a doubt that I've earned every comfort I enjoy now -and ever penny I've invested and saved.
Today the same parents would both be working, they'd have a 3000 square foot house, each kid would have their own room, with their own TV, their own cell phones, hell, their own vehicles. There'd be a media room, a three or four car garage, and every bedroom would have to have a walk in closet to hold all the clothing each child had. No one would eat dinner together, but each kid would have a preloaded debit card so they could eat out with their friends anytime they wanted to. They probably wouldn't really WORK because of all the extracurricular activities they're involved in - after all, their nanny can pick them up till they're 15 and can drive their own new Dodge Charger on a "hardship license." Never mind what their enabling parents have to pay for insurance, right? These same parents will, after all, be supporting them till they are about 26 years old - maybe even longer!
Baby boomers aren't without faults (no one is and every generation has it's good and bad points). All I'm saying is that we have DIFFERENT values than many in younger generations - just as our values differed from those of our parents.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 02-25-2013 at 02:09 PM..
When adjusted for inflation, they started out at wages better than minimum wage workers today?
That's because we were better in the good old days, kid. We didn't spend our time at work gaming on smart phones and gettin' paid to do it. We had to snuff out volcanoes wearing cheap cotton gloves and clear forests with a scroll saw. That kinda stuff. Things that were worth the buck twenty-five an hour we earned.
You know the interesting thing about those years as a kid and the later two decades as a young adult, adult, near middle age adult(to 2008)...We never worried or were pessimistic as people are now. The Internet has brought much knowledge but also much fear.
I never felt like a pawn of the upper class or government or special interest groups.etc. as is commonly bandied about now.
We had race riots but one never experienced from someone we sort of know, a C-D user, the type of hatred one reads on this forum.
There is a long thread in the History forum regarding what life was like in the 1970s, 1980s and the basic one for me was that no one was afraid or pessimistic about the future as is now common.
You know the interesting thing about those years as a kid and the latter two decades as a young adult, adult, near middle age adult(to 2008)...We never worried or were pessimistic as people are now. The Internet has brought much knowledge but also much fear.
I never felt like a pawn of the upper class or government or special interest groups.etc. as is commonly bandied about like now.
So your saying life was better when your head was in the sand? Or all of the sudden the government became corrupt since the late 90's?
That's because we were better in the good old days, kid. We didn't spend our time at work gaming on smart phones and gettin' paid to do it. We had to snuff out volcanoes wearing cheap cotton gloves and clear forests with a scroll saw. That kinda stuff. Things that were worth the buck twenty-five an hour we earned.
You left out having to ride on a bus through the snow to school and having only sliced bread to make our sandwiches?
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Do baby boomers realize that...
