Quote: I went to Staples the other day to buy some office supplies, and a new keyboard for my home computer cost less ($10) than a new mouse pad ($12).
Some things cost way less some way more. Not all things are dropping in price.
I sell group health insurance. 10 years ago the family rates averaged $350 per month. 10 years before that a good famnily rate was $80-100 per month. Now they are $1000 per month and some groups with older workers are paying $1200 or more PER family.
I have not seen wages keep up with cost. Besides health, I used to sell a ton of ancillary benfits like dental, small pernsion plans, disability etc. Those are going by the wayside because the employer no longer pays all the health premium. People are bing maxed out with theit health insurance cost. Getting harder and harder for a family to have to pay $600 per month for their sharre of the health cost when they are only making $10-12.00 per hour let alone save for retirement
Not all areas of the country are like Northern Virgina folks.
This may sound bizarre to someone in your business, but it may very well be the case that medical insurance is an area where prices have experienced a steep DECLINE since 1970 -- if you compare these prices accordingly.
Health care costs have risen dramatically over the years for a number of reasons, including things like malpractice costs, government regulation, hospital billing practices, etc. But it's long been my opinion that the primary factor in these rising costs has been the rapid advances in medicine and medical technology over time. There are simply a lot more medical treatments available today than ever before, and insurance companies are expected to foot the bill for most of them.
Here's an interesting exercise for someone in your line of work. Sit down and put together a list of all the medical treatments, diagnostic tests, pharmaceutical products, etc. that have been developed since 1970. Then go to a major insurance carrier and get a quote from them for a major medical policy that doesn't cover anything that didn't exist in 1970. I'll bet your monthly premium of $600-$1200 would go down to about $50 per month.
Another angle of this issue is that the insurance costs are distorted simply because they are just that -- insurance costs. As a result, they aren't subject to the same price variations associated with supply, demand, economies of scale, etc. that would apply to a normal product or service. To get a sense of just how big a factor this is, consider this: most elective surgeries that are not covered by insurance (Lasik eye surgery and most cosmetic surgeries, for example) have gotten substantially less expensive over time.