Unfortunate but true---Americans, by and large, do not take a Big Picture outlook on the subject of political and economic issues, a condition that only gets exacerbated every presidential election cycle when the "Are you better off now?" argument gets dusted off once again and we're all encouraged by at least one of our major political parties to develop a case of collective amnesia when instead we should be exhorted to examine these issues on a more extended timeline. Not holding my breath waiting for it to happen, though.
On the subject, I took Professor Cole's challenge and thought I'd see how my salary stacks up against my parents' pay 40 years ago (I was in my mid-teens then and not yet working). To my surprise, I discovered that yes, my typical white-collar salary exceeds my parents' combined blue-collar salary in inflation-adjusted dollars from 40 years ago, but not by a lopsided amount---and even then, it only tells half the story. Forty years ago, my parents raised a couple of kids in a four-bedroom house they owned in the suburbs in a condition of middle-class comfort if not affluence. Forty years later, I live in a one-bedroom apartment in a nice part of L.A., living a comfortable mid- to upper-middle class lifestyle. But even so, there's no way, on my salary, that I could have taken on the kinds of financial obligations my parents took on in the 1970s without it severely impacting my (and my family's) quality of life. Which is a way of saying, yes, I'm technically better off than I was (theoretically) 40 years ago, but only because I don't own a home or a car, and decided not to raise a family. If I had taken on those responsibilities, my current standard of living would not have been anywhere nearly as good as it was---in theory, at least---40 years ago. I imagine many others of my generation have had similar experiences.
---Vitelius
Comments