http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2818473Oh my.
Ms. Ed, the unappellated eohippus:
Horse with no Name (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 09:51 PM
Original message
I graduated from High School in 1981
Minimum wage was $3.35/hr
27 years later it is only $5.85.
THAT is what is wrong in America.
The story behind the headline is that last week, the unappellated eohippus complained that the $500-per-month Blue Cross-Blue Shield plan she has at work is 25% of her monthly income.
Ms. Ed either lied about the size of her premium, or grossly understated her income as a registered nurse.
No registered nurse in America makes anything like only $24,000 per year.
Or perhaps the unappellated eohippus is a keyboardist in a hospital or clinic, rather than a nurse, but wishes to be seen by other primitives as a nurse.
Anyway, like a row of dominos, when a primitive lies once, the lies start tumbling out, and one is reasonably sure Ms. Ed is going to continue feeding both the primitives and decent civilized people some real whoppers.
devilgrrl (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 09:53 PM
Original message
I also graduated in 1981 and most of my classmates are right-wing assholes.
How did our generation get so conservative?
tekisui (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 09:53 PM
Response to Original message
1. When I started working in 1996, it was $5.15.
12 years later....$5.85
htuttle (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 09:54 PM
Response to Original message
2. Same here
And I don't think $5.85 buys anywhere near what $3.35 bought back then.
leftofthedial (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 09:56 PM
Response to Original message
3. there should be a MAXIMUM WAGE/INCOME and it should be indexed to the minimum wage
Lydia Leftcoast (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 11:02 PM
Response to Reply #5
25. I don't remember 1981 prices very well, except that my housemates and I paid $270 a month total plus utilities for a three-bedroom apartment on the top floor of triple-decker house. As a graduate student, I lived on about $500 a month. When one housemate got a teaching job that paid $18,000 a year, her first words upon seeing the offer were, "$18,000? What am I going to do with all that money?"
However, I do remember prices from 1968, when the minimum wage was $1.25:
A pair of jeans was $7 for Levi's, $5 for Penney's store brand
Shirts were between $3 and $5. That year, my mom got me an embroidered blouse and told me to be careful with it and wear it only for special occasions, because it cost $13.
A quarter's tuition at the University of Minnesota was $125 for commuters
Tuition, room, and board at my private college alma mater was $2200
You could get a meal at a mom-and-pop restaurant for less than a dollar
Paperback books were 99 cents
Apartments were $50-100 per bedroom
New cars started at $1500
Canned food was less than 50 cents per can, sometimes as cheap as 10 cents
The most expensive meat at the grocery store was $2.98 a pound
If someone built a $50,000 house, you knew they were rich
When moving out of her house, my mom found a postcard I had written from New York in 1973, informing her that I had paid the "outrageous" price of $2.85 for breakfast.
However, some things were more expensive in real terms:
All electronics were more expensive. A component stereo system started at $200. There were no boomboxes at that point, so stereos were major presents from one's parents. The LPs to play on these stereo systems cost $3.98 for stereo, 2.98 for mono.
When calculators were first introduced in the early 1970s, they cost $300
Pantihose were expensive, $2.00 a pair, and they didn't last long.
Plane flights were more expensive, but the service was so much better that yesterday's coach class is closer to today's domestic first class than to today's coach class.
When moving out of her house, my mom found a postcard I had written from New York in 1973, informing her that I had paid the "outrageous" price of $2.85 for breakfast.
On the whole, I think that today's minimum wage would have to be at least $12 an hour to have the same purchasing power that it did in 1968.
If you're interested in yesterday's wages and prices, go to the public library and read old newspapers on microfilm or microfiche.
Lydia Leftcoast (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 12:13 AM
Response to Reply #32
33. It clearly shows that college costs have risen faster than inflation for both private and public colleges.
When I ran my senior year (1972) tuition/room and board charge of $2700, it came out at only about $13,800.
Yet that's more like what total costs at a state school would be now.
I blame rising college costs on administrative bloat. Every institution I ever attended or taught at now has more administrators, all of whom need countless assistants, of course, than it did when I was there, anywhere from 15 to 35 years ago.
Uh-oh. I find myself in full agreement with a primitive.
angrycarpenter (674 posts) Mon Feb-04-08 09:59 PM
Response to Original message
7. Greed is whats wrong with America
It is pure naked greed that has made wages so low. That and the perception that the working poor somehow deserve to suffer for the bad choices they have made.That is all the proof we need that there are two Americas. $5.85 is worse than slave wages. It is an insult to every thing that I thought America stood for.
A HERETIC I AM (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 10:21 PM
Response to Reply #7
16. Should "bad choices" be rewarded somehow?
I think the minimum wage needs to be adjusted, don't get me wrong but your statement "That and the perception that the working poor somehow deserve to suffer for the bad choices they have made" strikes me as very curious.
There is plenty that is wrong with this country - a poorly educated populace for starters, but I just don't get your point. The working poor don't "deserve to suffer" by any stretch but is the alternative; that they perhaps be rewarded for making bad choices at all logical?
$5.85 an hour is not worse than slave wages. NO pay is worse. But it is, after all, the minimum wage, not a target for a career high.
angrycarpenter (674 posts) Mon Feb-04-08 10:58 PM
Response to Reply #16
23. That is the rationale for turning their backs and not giving a damn. There is are some who believe that if a person is poor they must have done something stupid to get in the situation they are in and therefore deserve the hardship. Well does a single mom who's husband abandoned her and the kids deserve to suffer further?
How about the man who was run out of a good job by walmart and has no choice but to work there? Does he deserve that? for many of the people who work minimum wage the bad choices were made for them. Is it fair to blame all poverty on stupidity? Many do. That was the point I was trying to make.
And it is worse than slave wages. Slave owners at least fed and housed their slaves. Try affording rent, utilities, and food on minimum wage it cannot be done without public assistance. The people who pay min. wage are counting on food stamps to keep their employees afloat. Minimum wage costs tax payers billions every year.
ayeshahaqqiqa (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 10:06 PM
Response to Original message
11. Class of '68 here
and, if memory serves, a couple years later the minimum for women (yep, this was before equal pay for equal work) was something like $2.35. And gasoline was 35 cents a gallon, a gallon of milk way under a dollar, etc, etc. It appalls me how slowly the minimum wage creeps up--doesn't begin to cope with inflation.
This primitive is full of excresence.
Ever since the minimum wage was first enacted during the mid-1930s, there has NEVER been one rate for men, one rate for women. There has ALWAYS been the same rate for men and women.
I suspect the primitive is thinking of the one-half-the-minimum-wage waiters and waitresses make, and during the far distant long-ago youth of the primitive, nearly all were women.
jimshoes (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-04-08 10:08 PM
Response to Original message
12. In 1971 my first factory job paid $1.75 hr. On the other hand, in 1975 I bought a brand new Monte Carlo for $4950.00. But you are right, wages are not keeping up with prices nowadays.
Once again, the primitive reveal their true ages, coming perilously close to the seventh decade of their lives, as betrayed in their reminescences.