True inflation?

[kentuck]

Minimum wage workers fared much better when the minimum wage was $1.25 per hour.

Housing or rent cost on the average was about $150 to $200 per month. It is 4 times that now. That means the average worker needs 4 times minimum wage today to pay rent only.

Utilities (water and electricity) have risen about 300 to 400% from that time.

Gasoline was about .35 cents per gallon. It is now ten times that. Ten gallons of gas was $3.50. Today it is $35.00 for that same gas.

Food has gone up in prices every year. Americans are eating less and less nutritionally for much more money. A bag of apples might cost a dollar? Today, one apple might cost a dollar, for example.

Taken everything into consideration, the minimum wage today would need to be about nine or ten times what it was when it was $1.25. In other words, the minimum wage today should be between $11.25 and $12.50 an hour. That would be a conservative estimate.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for a massive increase in the minimum wage. n/t

-Laelth

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. fun how they leave the day to day stuff out of 'core inflation'

so it sounds like no big deal...

sP

[daredtowork]

3. Let's not forget to adjust for local cost of living

Rent and cost of living where I live is much higher than elsewhere in the country...so in relative terms minimum wage is even lower.

[kentuck]

4. True.

The costs are different in different parts of the country.

[taught_me_patience]

5. Yes, minimum wage has not kept up with inflation since the 60's

we know that already. Minimum wage workers account for less than 5% of hourly workers in America.

[starroute]

6. Necessities have gone up a lot more in cost than luxuries

Housing, transportation, health care, education -- all of these were relatively cheap in the 1950s and 60s are are far more expensive now. Food seems roughly the same -- higher in some cases, lower in others. Clothing is the only one of the basics that is now a lot cheaper than it was 50 years ago, thanks to cheap Far Eastern labor (though it also isn't as well made and doesn't last as long.)

On the other hand, TVs now cost less in real dollars -- that is, not corrected for inflation -- than they did in the 1950s. An MP3 download of one song also costs about the same in unadjusted money (89 cents) as I would have paid for a 45 single in 1959. Computers and related devices keep getting cheaper.

What it comes out to is that 50 years ago, you could live pretty well on a modest income as long as you weren't trying to keep up with the Joneses. But now you might have a house full of cheap gadgets and still have trouble putting food on the table or getting your teeth fixed. And meanwhile the Republicans keep insisting that anyone who has a TV and a cellphone isn't really poor.

[roamer65]

7. A lot of the inflation has come in the past 10 years.

The M1 money supply has been inflated to about 4x the amount it was around 2000. You cannot do that and expect prices not to rise. We had two ways to pay for the 2008 economic collapse, pay for it in higher taxes and unemployment...or pay for it through the tax called inflation. We now know what way the Federal Reserve and government chose.
The real inflation rate is running between 8-10 percent right now.

[raccoon]

8. That sounds realistic to me.

The real inflation rate is running between 8-10 percent right now.

I believe most of the time, the "official" inflation rate is wayyyyy understated.

[taught_me_patience]

9. Please provide evidence that real inflation is 8-10%

(outside of shadowstats). It is complete and total bunk.