They did this in the pizza delivery business too. When gas hit $3, they put on a deliver charge. It started at $1. Of course it doesnât actually go to the driver who pays for the gas, but thatâs besides the point. When gas hit $4 it goes to $2 a delivery, still the driver got none of it. Now gas is $1.90 and the charge is still there. Of course the driver not only still doesnât get any of it, but the mileage they were getting before the delivery charge, has now been decreased. So the customer pays for a delivery charge that doesnât go to the driver and the driver gets less mileage than they got before the charge was added on. Just another way the Man sticks it to you.
So let me get this straight. Your mom got $12 an hour for a job that required a highschool diploma for an education. $12 in 1975 @ 3.5% annualized inflation equals $12*1.035^33 (33 years) = $37.32 So the equivalent wage (in today's Dollars) your mom earned was $37.32 an hour or $5,971 a month, for a job that requires relatively little education nor is abnormally dangerous. Either you're lying or your mom's boss was delusional paying that wage. You expect $70k annually today working 8 hours in a grocery store? Give me a break. If you want higher income, get yourself a higher education. It's that simple. Real wages on the upper income end rose much faster in real terms because supply of human labor in those percentiles is way lower than in the lower percentiles, where you are competing with immigrants and highschool dropouts for a job. Also note how the 50th percentile ("middle class") has been going back and forth around break even for the last 35 years. Not paradise, but definitely not doing worse than the 70s:
What are the results if you exchange average cost of a home ("average" homes have become much bigger in the last 30 years) with average metropolitan apartment rents per sqft.
OK lemme get this straight... I should "wake up" pilotboy? And listen to you "telling it like it is?" Did it ever occur to you that if someone is successful and you're not maybe you should listen to them and change your thinking? Why don't you become pilotman and take responsibility for your life instead of whining about it.
here is the very politically-incorrect answer to the question, "why does it take 2 incomes now?" the workforce is larger due to more women in it, hence the increased supply of labor has held down wages
Yeah, wake up stupid, look around, "if you are not outraged you are not paying attention." Why would you assume I am not successful? I am a cargo pilot for a large private company and I am 33 years old, hence the username. What is your profession? Our country is broken and I care about it so I am pointing out a major problem. Income distribution is a real problem. And it has nothing to do with hard work or skills, it is about connections and corruption. And throughout the history of the world it only ends in one way. A big War. www.lcurve.org So maybe I should change my thinking and start listening to successful people. Who do you reccomend? Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, George Bush, Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Angelo Mozillo, Charles Prince, Alan Greenspan, Tim Geithner??? Any other completely incompetent successful people you could reccomend? I will think for myself and I just happen to agree with these self made successful people; Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Jim Rogers, George Soros, Warren Buffet.
Because successful people don't bitterly whine about what others have and how unfair it is, they take charge of their lives and provide for themselves.
Here's another tipoff. "Nothing" to do with hard work or skills? Bullshit. Everything's about connections and corruption? Oh please. Grow up pilotboy. P.S. Is this your excuse, you're not "connected?"
Ok youâre not getting it. This thread is called âEven with inflation it took one worker to support a family.â Iâm telling you why and you donât want to hear it. You know, denial is not a river in Egypt. $37 (it is a large local union grocery store) an hour to be a cashier is rediculous nowadays, but back then that was the standard. This crap about needing a college degree to make a decent wage was non existent then. Cashiers got $37 and college educated people got more. The ceo got maybe 30 times that, or 2.2 million (todayâs dollars) a year. Now the cashier gets $10 and the ceo gets 400 times that or 8 million. It was just the standard, you worked, then you got paid a decent wage. Now, you work and they say, âoh weâre going to cut your pay because we can get this immigrant over hear to do it for less. If you donât like it, you can quit.â So thatâs why it takes 2 incomes to support a family now. Wages have been suppressed. You can come up with whatever stats you want that says whatever, but everybody knows one thing, the rich/poor gap has widened exponentially in the past 30 years, which results with the poor and middle class being constantly squeezed. Nobody can deny this. A cashier used to make $37, now a college grad would be lucky to get that after 4 years and thousands in student loans. All that money they used to get paid is going somewhere else. Again, what planet are you on? Yes the average house might be âbigger now.â But youâre not taking into account all of the newly built apartments and condoâs. 30 and 50 years ago, they were scarce, now theyâre everywhere. This is another example of the widening rich/poor gap. It used to be everybody has a small single family house. Now, some have large single family homes, some townhouses, and a whole lot of people live in small apartments. Therefore, it's probably difficult to determine the average house size. I heard that housing prices have increased 70% in the past 10 years. I'm not sure if that is before or after the crash, but regardless, wages have not gone up that much and everybody knows it. Housing prices kept going up because the money could be borrowed. Now it can't be so easily, so a huge housing correction is justified to bring prices back in alignment with stagnant wages.
Try not to think of it as whining. Think of it as trying to get the people to wake up and revolt against our criminal government. This is how our founding fathers got things started. Do you have anything to discuss about this thread or you just come here to tell people to stop complaining and you have no content to add?