Has your income kept up?

[Airpark]

Have heard for some time that since about 1967 the U S Dollars has about halved in buying power every ten years.

Sitting in the doctor's office yesterday, waiting for my wife's appointment, read that it now takes a mere $266,000 to purchase what you could have bought in 1967 for only $37,500.

Just over a seven time increase/decrease in buying power in about 55 years.

Has your income kept up?....Mine has NOT!


Now, I know that Cajun Lawyer is WAY Ahead...but he ain't most of us!

 

[LVSteve]

Sitting in the doctor's office yesterday, waiting for my wife's appointment, read that it now takes a mere $266,000 to purchase what you could have bought in 1967 for only $37,500.
.
.
.

Now, I know that Cajun Lawyer is WAY Ahead...but he ain't most of us!

If that was for a house I can well believe it. The cost of buying a home as a percentage of your income has jumped a huge amount since the 1960s, and not just in the US.

Cars have gone a bit that way due to consumer demands for technology, better refinement and safety regs.

Food has probably gone up because there are more of us but the same amount of productive land. Add to that the increases in transport costs and the latest health overheads and the prices were bound to go up.

Conversely, appliances and home electronics are probably better and cheaper now than they were 30 years ago.

As for Caje, he lives in a special parallel universe.

 

[Comrad]

I think the cost of homes has gone up because this latest crop of buyers isn't happy unless they put themselves into bankruptcy with the purchase of a gigantic stuccoed nightmare of a 4,000 sq ft McMansion.

 

[Lost Lake]

So is the question whether I make 7 times as much money now as I did in '67?

Well I was 3 in '67 so I can't answer that, but as for when I started really working in the 80's, yes I make more than 7 times that amount.

And technically I guess a fair question for me would be whether I make 4 or 5 times what I did in the 80's and of course I can say yes to that.

Back then (80's) a starting wage was in the low $2 an hour range. I ran a construction company at the end of the 80's and had no problem hiring good workers for $10 to $12 an hour.

Now of course $12 an hour is poverty.


.

 

[pharmer]

I do make more than 7X. However, when I started working for formal (check) wages in the summer of '69 ($1.60/hr), out of $60 earned I kept $58. All of the deduction categories were the same (except for health insurance which I haven't paid for until about 3 years ago). About 10 years ago I was a pharma rep. Got a one-time bonus for a pill launch of $10,000. After deductions my cut was $6,050. I don't remember hiring a "partner." And that's why we are all "behind." Joe

 

[feralmerril]

Google is your friend. Just go here.
DollarTimes.com | Inflation Calculator

 

[Old 44 Guy]

In 1967 I was making $149 per week. And when I retired in 1988 I was making $615. Now with pension & SS. I'm just above the poverty level.My pension has increased a whopping $195 a month in the last 25 years. My union really screwed us. No cost of living.

 

[rwsmith]

I feel like I was keeping up.....

.....until around 1980. It's been nothing but a downhill slide from there.

 

[Cal44]

, read that it now takes a mere $266,000 to purchase what you could have bought in 1967 for only $37,500.

Just over a seven time increase/decrease in buying power in about 55 years.

!

Not sure about 1967, but I bought my first house (condo actually) in 1975 for $41K in Silicon Valley.

Interest rate on the mortgage was 9%.

Now interest rates are less than 1/2 that.

So, houses are more affordable right now in many places than they have been in many years.

In Sili Valley (Mtn View, CA) that condo now would probably go for $500K so it has kept up.

YMMV based on where you live.

I'm retired now, and obviously took a hit in income when I first retired, but we have rental properties and we have been able to refi those several times to very low rates and thereby increase cash flow.

Life is good.

Now if the government can keep from going broke ...

Dave

 

[mg357]

Everything is getting more expensive and that is very horrible.

 

[feralmerril]

I probley make about the same as I did in the early 60s, but then again I am retired. I definetly had my up`s and downs. I remember hireing on the conservation dept back in wisconsin in 1962 for $320s a month. 1960, 1961 the national park service for about $2.00s a hour. A movie studio guard for universal studios was about $1.90 back in 1964, a lockheed guard in 1965 for about $2.45, worked in the late 1950s for $1.00 a hour in cannerys, a foundry in 1959 for about $2.00s hr, that was considered a well paying job back then.
No lie. I know for a fact the average wage job here in utah (a right to work state) pays $2.13 a hour plus tips!!!! Just a couple days ago a waitress at one of the best chain resturants out there told me thats what she gets plus I had heard the same several times since we moved here 8 years ago. I couldnt feed our cats on that! Then I hear how snowden made $220,000s a year as a high school drop out computer geek as a goverment contractor. AND threw that away! Yup, makes you proud to pay your taxs!

 

[fat tom]

It must have. I sure buy a lot more **** than I did in the 60's and all the bills still get paid.
f.t.

 

[lonejacklarry]

In the last half of '67, I was on my senior trip to SE Asia. Lessee, here--E-4 w/ under 2 years, flight pay, and combat pay--I think I was at about $280/ month. That was $177 base, $55 flight pay, and $50 combat pay.

Later at E-5 over 2 years, it went to about $310 base, $70 flight, and $50 combat, totaling $430. I did not stay around for the huge pay hike at 3 years.

So, yes, my income is considerably more than 7 times higher. How could it not be w/ the military rate of pay?

 

[feralmerril]

My first house in palmdale california was $12,500s in 1969. I ended up giveing it away. But thats another unbeliveable story. My secound one was a brand new 4 bedroom in lancaster calif for $86,000 in 1981. It probley went high as $270,000 after I sold it but then the bubble burst and it probley sells for The same $86,000 again.
My first 3 or 4 cars I gave about $45s to $100s for, and they ran! Now if I could have kept them to now, they probley would bring 15 to 20K apiece! A tank of gas now cost me as much as each one of what I paid for those cars! Of course gas was around .27 cents a gallon back then and I even remember seeing it for .11 cents once at a gas war. Ever heard of such a thing as a gas war? Oh for a bag of 10 hot dogs or 10 hamburgers for a buck again! The funny thing is with the prices I quoted of those cars and gas, my dad was ranting and raveing about buying his first old car for $15s etc!

 

[smokindog]

IMHO, you're being short sighted if all you're considering is income. When I started in the corporate world in the 70's, it was about the package. Current earnings and future earnings (retirement and all). I passed up some very lucrative openings early in my career only because of the "package". Hindsight shows I messed up as I watched rules and regulations from DC destroy many a Company I worked for, taking my "package" and destroying it.

Well in the past 40 years, most of us corporate employees have lost pensions and retirement health care. To make up, we demanded higher wages. As that happened, many others seemed to have secured gold plated pensions/benefits and then demanded their tax supported salaries and benefits be increased to keep up with our pay.

I now hear I'm not paying MY fair share, bleeding taxes, and wondering how in the hell I'm going to ever have enough money saved to pay for health care and living expenses with what is left after paying for everyone else to retire! Hell, I don't even know what it's going to cost!

I often have a similar "discussion" with my lifetime school employee brother who comfortably retired at 55 with an inflation protected pension for life, health care coverage for 55-65, and gap insurance beyond that after listening for 30+ years how HE was under payed. He never had to move to keep a job, he never lived under the threat of losing a job, he never worried about downsizing, and he didn't have to spend 1/2 his life at 35K feet.

Sorry if my rant just irritated some but I'm so tired of public service emloyees and others who scream how they aren't compensated in line with corporate america. The general employee in corporate america has been screwed the past 40 years.

So to answer the question, my salary has kept up but my security to retire has not.

OK, I'll bet I'm in trouble now!

 

[LTC]

E3 in 1967, probably about $140 a month give or take. No flight pay or other add ons. Separated in 1970 as an E4 at probably $260 give or take.

So yes, I'm doing better than 7 times 1967 wages

LTC

 

[BearBio]

All I know is that the last two Presidents have denied us COL allowances, merit raises, monetary awards and now, sequester. No, I'm falling behind. And, since we can't replace those who retire, our workload increases. We went from 16 biologists and 3 Supervisors, and 2 admin down to 6 biologists, no admin and 2 Supervisors. No less work. And people want to know why they can't get their water projects approved!

 

[hanken]

I work for a screen company making screens for coal mine prep plants. Have not had a raise in almost seven years. It looks like if the powers in Washington have their way it won't be long I might not have a job at all.


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[ChuckS1]

Gotta agree. I'm a lot luckier, I suppose, than others. I retired from the Army and went to work for a couple of years as a "beltway bandit" doing consulting work for the Navy and then went to work for Lockheed Martin. The reason I switched was for the pension plan LM had. NOW, 14 years later, my part of LM has discontinued the pension for new employees and is barely giving out cost-of-living raises. In the meantime, where before LM would move employees around to different contracts as the need arose, it's become a body shop, looking for employees who'll work for the lowest pay and least time off. Why? Because of the pressure to keep profits up. Up till now, all my work have been on DOD IT contracts and you'd be surprised at how many non-US citizens are working on sensitive (not classified) projects, including a lot of mainland Chinese programmers. But I digress, sorry. For the federal employees who complain they aren't paid enough, all I can say is from what I see every day, they're paid too much, since they usually don't do anything at all on the contracts I work on, other than attend meetings and take up space. And to top that off, any real work that gets done by the Government program offices isn't done by federal employees, but by their support contractors they hire. Sorry for the rant, but we could get rid of half the federal workforce and not miss them one bit.

 

[finesse_r]

In a Short Answer, NO

Have heard for some time that since about 1967 the U S Dollars has about halved in buying power every ten years.Sitting in the doctor's office yesterday, waiting for my wife's appointment, read that it now takes a mere $266,000 to purchase what you could have bought in 1967 for only $37,500.Just over a seven time increase/decrease in buying power in about 55 years.Has your income kept up?....Mine has NOT!Now, I know that Cajun Lawyer is WAY Ahead...but he ain't most of us!

Actually the over all increase is more like 10 to 12 times the mid-1960 prices. A car that cost 2500 in 1965 now costs 30,000 plus. Gas in the mid-1960s ranged from 19 cents to 26 cents a gallon for regular, depending on if it was on sale or not. Today it is in the $3.25 to $4.00 range. Precious metals like gold and silver which are the best indicators of real inflation are more like 20 times the 1960 prices. A coke from a vending machine was 6 cents for a 6 oz and 10 cents for a 10 ounce give or take. Today it ranges from $1.00 to $2.00 depending on where the machine is located.

A pair of Levis was $3.99 a pair and today that same pair of Levis is $25.00 to $35.00 depending on style and location. Sugar was 5 cents for a 5 pound bag, and God only knows what it is selling for today. Milk was about 25 cents per gallon and today it is over $3.00.

Anything that actually shows the real inflation rate is dropped from the items the federal government uses to establish inflation.

Working men and women's salaries have generally not kept pace with inflation for a long time. Professional and executive salaries have often exceeded inflation.

In recent years Social Security has fallen way behind actual inflation rates, despite the law that requires SS to keep pace with inflation. Falsified and cherry picked data is used to cheat retirees out of billions every year. Then it is wasted on foreign aid and benefits to illegal aliens.