On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 23:22:16 GMT, "Ed Huntress" wrote:
"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
.. .
Domestic manufactured product prices have grown 12x
over the period (my example of a $3400 car then to a $38,000 car today).
Not a lot of that can be attributed to wage growth.
I don't get the point here. But your conclusion about wage growth is not
correct. Average individual money income in 1967 was $2,464. The same income
in 2001 was $22,851. (http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/p01.html).
That's apples and oranges.
In the first place, those are per capita numbers, not per worker numbers.
Minimum wage in 1967 was $1.65 an hour, which would equate to $3300
a year, and most workers in manufacturing made more than minimum wage.
But there were many fewer women, and basically no children, in the work
force in 1967. In other words, they made zero, but your figure averages
them in to come up with the low per capita figure, which is not reflective
of actual wages.
OTOH the 2001 figures reflect a work force with nearly full employment
of women. That pushes the per capita figures closer to actual wages.
A more accurate and relevant figure for 1967 can be drawn from table
P-8
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/p08.html . Here you'll
find that the median income for males 35 to 44 was $7,636. That is
$33,137 in 2001 dollars. By contrast the 2001 income for males 35 to
44 was $41,104, which represents a only 24% real increase over the 33
year span.
Vehicle prices are about the same percentage of individual incomes as they
were in 1967, and 1957, and so on. They've remained very stable throughout
our entire lifetimes.
Not so. As more correct figures show, a $3400 car could be bought by a
35 year old male worker in 1967 for 3400/7636 or 44.5% of his annual income.
But in 2001 the numbers are 38000/41104 or 92.4% of his annual income.
That's a better than 2x price increase with respect to same year wages.
So while incomes corrected for inflation of equivalent workers have increased
by 24%, auto prices corrected for inflation have increased more than twice
as much.
Gary