At my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary this week they had a chart with facts about 1972 when they were married. One part showed the cost of various things, and it seemed like everything was on average about 10X the dollar amount from back then, except for average income, so I did an analysis to find the multiplier for each category, listed below:
Annual Income $9,133 to $54,130 (+5.9X)
Fed Minimum wage $1.60 to $7.25 (+4.5X)
California min wage $1.65 to $15.50 (+9.4X)
Gallon of Milk $1.20 to $3.59 (+3.0X)
Loaf of Bread $.25 to $1.85 (+7.4X)
Pound of Bacon $0.97 to $7.31 (+7.5X)
Dozen Eggs $0.52 to $4.12 (+7.9X)
Gallon of Gas: $.33 to 3.18 (+9.3X)
Movie Ticket $1.31 to $12 (+10.6)
Stamp $0.05 to $.60 (+12X)
4 yrs Public tuition $2,010 to $24,600 (+12.2)
New car: 3,500 to 48,200 (+13.7X)
House: 27,550 to 440,300 (+15.9X)
Asking Rent (house) $108 to $2000 (+18.5X)
Corporate profits $301B to $9,800B (+32.5X)
In case you are wondering if total profits increasing so much is due to the economy rising, it has greatly outpaced GDP metrics listed below.
GDP per capita $6112 to $69,287 (+11.3X)
Total USA GDP $1.28T to $23T (+17.9X)
If average income increased at the same rate as profits over the last 50 years, the average income in the US would be about $292K/yr. If it followed the same cost of housing we’d average $145K. Even if it just followed stamps it would be $109K
I know this isn’t a perfect or particularly scientific analysis (thanks GoogIe) and other segments like household electronics are also down but this is what I looked up. This isn’t about inflation but the lack of wage growth compared to profits. The gap between worker productivity (money made for corporations per worker) and wages has been expanding since 1978. I hope this is insightful for some people.
Tldr: corporations are retaining insane amounts of profits and paying workers less than ever, so life is insanely less affordable today then it was 50 years ago. Wages need to go up dramatically.