$6 per hour job of 1970 would be $50 today (employee, debt, apply)
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and they got pensions and full med insurance, too. For assemblyline jobs that they learned in a day! Those bennies would mean a total of $70 an hour today. Instead, those jobs pay $15 an hour today, or that factory is in China. There's only just so many jobs that pay decent money and they take 100k worth of higher education (and waiting and luck) to get. You'll either get that kind of education, start your own biz, drive a truck OTR for 80+ hours per week (with a partner and live in the truck), or make sub 40k per year. Take your pick, cause all there is or is going to be. There's just too damned many people for it to be otherwise.
There's just too damned many people for it to be otherwise.
Yes, there are too many people for everyone to be paid the equivalent of $70 or even $50 hour. I don't agree that it takes owning your own business (or truck) or a 6-figure education to get those salaries, but I also don't think that it is impossible to live a good life on less than that, either.
I think that it is worth noting that most people who make 6-figure salaries work much more than 40 hours a week, so on an hourly basis, very few are getting $50, indeed.
and they got pensions and full med insurance, too. For assemblyline jobs that they learned in a day! Those bennies would mean a total of $70 an hour today. Instead, those jobs pay $15 an hour today, or that factory is in China. There's only just so many jobs that pay decent money and they take 100k worth of higher education (and waiting and luck) to get. You'll either get that kind of education, start your own biz, drive a truck OTR for 80+ hours per week (with a partner and live in the truck), or make sub 40k per year. Take your pick, cause all there is or is going to be. There's just too damned many people for it to be otherwise.
If you use westegg inflation calculator, $6.00 in 1970 would now be the equivalent of about $36.00. But you're right wages have not kept up with inflation. My dad started teaching in 1971, making $7,000 as a first year teacher. If that number followed inflation a first year teacher in district would today be making $40,000. Unfortunately first year teachers in his district make a little over $30,000 to start.
The one price that always sticks out to is gas prices when compared to inflation. I graduated from high school in the late 90s and remember gas prices always hovering around $0.93 / gallon. If that price had followed inflation gas prices would be around $1.31 / gallon.
Lastly, I'll point out that out of high school I worked as dock worker at a grocery warehouse in the summer of 1999 making $10.00 / hour. Great work and money for an 18 year old kid at the time. If you look around the country for similar jobs (i.e. picker / packer, standing forklift driver, etc....) those jobs still only pay anywhere from $8.00 / hour to $11.00 / hour. Inflation says those jobs should be paying $14.00 / hour.
Unfortunately there are a multitude of variables that influence prices and wages.
I'm 67 years old and have been in the workforce since 1966. Closing up on half a century I guess.
Where do you get the idea we all made great money back in the good old days and the $6/hour was the going rate?
From my social security statement here's my wages from high school to 1980.
1968 and 69 I was in the army so those years are a little skewed.
In 1970 I worked a full time job, had some overtime and my pay for the year was $4,759 for an average of $2.38/hour but remember that pay had overtime and if I had to guess it would average 3 to 4 hours weekly.
If you go to this inflation calculator $2.38 in 1970 would be equivalent to $14.64 today but again remember I had overtime. I don't remember the exact hourly pay when I started but I do remember when I got a raise to $2.15 about halfway through the year.
1971 was a recession and I suffered like a lot of others at the time.
And I wasn't in Podunk either, I worked and lived in Mountain View, California. In case anyone is interested I had a studio apartment at 260 Mariposa Ave, Mountain View, CA 94041 and my rent was $125/month. Back of the building at the south end, second floor, overlooking the pool. Yeah, I lived there once.
$6.00/hour back then was the stuff dreams were made of. Very few people made that kind of money and for us $4.00/hour was dream wages.
And tell me about the plentiful pensions companies used to give out that you speak of. I must have been the only one not getting a pension.
Gasoline was $0.35/gallon and adjusted for inflation $0.35 is equivalent to $2.15 today so when you're paying $2.40 today it isn't all that out of whack.
Two things I see that are different today.
1. The amount genx, geny and millennials spend on cell phones and computers I find simply staggering. It isn't unusual to find someone earning $8.00/hour yet spending $100/month of that on a stupid cell phone.
2. They see easy money, lucky money really, made by a few and somehow they feel they are entitled as well. The sense of entitlement is staggering as well. Say I earn $35.00/hour and to tell the truth I don't work hard at all. Snowflake over there works hard at Wal-Mart for $12.00/hour and you listen to him he feels he should get more than I do simply because he works harder.
So, my precious little tigers, we never really did have it as good as some of you like to think we did.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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There are a lot of problems with such comparisons, with inflation of some items being way off and others not so much. My first new car cost $2,500 in 1973, the one we bought most recently cost $28,000. Milk in 1970 was about $1.30, now just a little over $2. I was making $3/hour, while in college 1970-74, no benefits, often more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay since there was no law requiring it then. My rent was $150 for a two bedroom apartment, car payment $73,
graduated and went to graduate school with no student loan debt. When it comes to wages, you cannot simply apply inflation to them and project what they "should be" now. Wages have always been based on the value of the work to the employer, and how much they have to pay to attract people, while maximizing their profit to stay in business and make a comfortable living, and/or satisfy the shareholders. How much the employee is in debt, has to pay for student loan debt, or the cost of housing has never been the employer's problem.
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