[BenLurkin]

Old Ben remembers the 70s. Consumer goods are cheaper (relatively) and much more plentiful today - as are low cost retail outlets.

[Piquaboy]

I pay as much attention to Bernie Sanders as I do Michael Morre.

[sonsofliberty2000]

I feel the font size we are stuck at stinks!

Unreadable at this size! Free the pixels!

John Kerry has said, "I voted for bigger pixels before I voted against them. George Bush has lied to the American people about pixel size. I was in Vietnam. John Edwards is my vice-president, and he voted for bigger pixels too."

---

Patriot Paradox

[camle]

in the 70's if you needed work, or a second job, you could always pump gas. today virtually that entire job class has been priced out of business.

[seastay]

in the 70s I was youthful, today I am older, no comparison. end of story.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Lifestyles today aren't keeping up with the lifestyles depicted as middle class on television. People would feel a lot richer if they stopped watching TV advertising.

[dalebert]

Well, we don't have a pizza eating cigar smoker in the oval office. I would call that "better off."

[A. Pole]

Percent of Households Owning in 1970 Owning in 2001

[...]
Cell Phone     0 %    23 %
Large-screen TV    0 %    25 %
Answering Machine    0 %    37 %
Cable or Satellite TV hookup    0 %    64 %
VCR    0 %    74 %
Microwave Oven    0 %    75 %

Car and radio ownership was much higher during the Great Depression than in 1914 both in USA and Germany. What does it prove?

[Alberta's Child]

The underlying premise of this article is right on target. Anytime I hear someone whine and complain about how much "better" it was for the middle class back in the post-WW2 years, I make sure they understand how cheap it would be to enjoy a 1950s standard of living in 2004 dollars.

Think about it . . . back then, the largest expense item for a typical hospital was the laundry bill for their bed linens.

[MEGoody]

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm much better off than I was in the 70s. Heck, I'm much better off than I was 4 years go.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

The important point to bear in mind is that "the bottom fifth of the wage distribution" does not represent some permanent group of people. Instead, it signifies the earnings of workers who at that time have the lowest levels of skills and experience. My college-age daughters, doing temporary clerical work, are in the bottom fifth. But even if the income of the bottom fifth were to stagnate over the next twenty years, my daughters will earn higher incomes as they acquire valuable knowledge.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie3.html

Table IE-3. Household Shares of Aggregate Income by Fifths of the Income Distribution: 1967 to 2001

From the table of Share of aggregate income

Below represents the year and the lowest fifth through the highest fifth shares of aggregate income; plus the top five percent.

2001.........3.5, 8.7, 14.6, 23.0, 50.1, 22.4

1970.........4.1, 10.8, 17.4, 24.5, 43.3, 16.6

So what? Isn't it historically natural that the rich get richer? At least here in the U.S. the rich are not always the same families.

The stats I would like to see are the 2004 number of families that appears in each column; the question being, "Are the higher paying (middle-class jobs) disappearing while lower paying jobs are increasing?" To wit, as our wealth is redistributed to developing countries per leftist ideologues' and "free" traders' dictates, are American workers paying the entire cost of the scheme? That strange partnership lets the socialist ideologues and conservative capitalists "free" traders reap the benefits.

"Indeed, we have become so rich that we are approaching saturation in the consumption not only of necessities, but also of goods recently thought to be luxuries...Virtually everyone who is old enough and well enough to drive a car has one. In the case of television, there are 0.8 sets per person (2.2 per household)...The level of saturation for many consumer durables is so high that even the poorest fifth of households are well endowed with them."

So we are much better off because we got more thingies. Whoopie. Oh, how about comparing consumer debt in 1970 and now? I don't recall getting calls and junk mail everyday with offers of credit cards back then.

In the 1970's, ordinary working people drove Vegas and Pintos. They did not eat out much. They rarely traveled by airplane. Many of their jobs were dangerous. Do you really think that there are many working Americans today who would trade places with their 1970's counterparts?

No sources provided. So I'll say that there are more older cars on the road today. There are more fast food joints today. The airline industry was regulated back then, it's cheaper today. More dangerous jobs than today? Really? Yes, many people would change back to a more stable employment environment.

Does me having opinions contrary to the Party line mean that I hate President Bush? No. I plan to vote for him -- I appreciate him letting our military take the war to the enemy.

[js1138]

I'm pretty sure microwave ovens were available in 1970. In fact they haven't changed much since then.

[Last Dakotan]

Today, half of those in the labor force, supported by generous pensions, retire in their fifties."

Mostly those who work for governments.