Comparing the cost of living between 1975 and 2015:

[B Calm]

Comparing the cost of living between 1975 and 2015: You are being lied and fooled when it comes to inflation data and the cost of living.



http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-compare-1975-2015-inflation-price-changes-history/

[enough]

1. This is a chart worth several thousand words. Thanks. (nt)

[zazen]

2. I can only imagine the difference in health care costs n/t

[jomin41]

3. On the other hand...

CEO compensation relative to that of other high earners:

Over the last three decades, CEO compensation grew far faster than that of other highly paid workers, those earning more than 99.9 percent of other wage earners. CEO compensation in 2012 was 4.75 times greater than that of the top 0.1 percent of wage earners, a ratio 1.5 higher than the 3.25 ratio that prevailed over the 1947–1979 period (this wage gain is equivalent to the wages of 1.5 high wage earners).
Also over the last three decades, CEO compensation increased further relative to other very high wage earners than the wages of college graduates grew relative to those of high school graduates.
That CEO pay grew far faster than pay of the top 0.1 percent of wage earners indicates that CEO compensation growth does not simply reflect the increased market value of highly paid professionals in a competitive market for skills (the “market for talent”) but reflects the presence of substantial rents embedded in executive pay (meaning CEO pay does not reflect greater productivity of executives). Consequently, if CEOs earned less or were taxed more, there would be no adverse impact on output or employment.

http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/

[6chars]

4. see - eggs and millk are cheaper

[FrodosPet]

38. Milk does seem pretty cheap

I usually pay $1.79 to $2.69 a gallon here in 2016. That is cheaper than I what was paying in the late 1980s, when it was $2.99 a gallon (in true 1989 dollars, not inflation adjusted).

[cprise]

65. If you like added hormones, antibiotics, and other innovations

Like animals living their lives packed into filthy pens and cages... yeah the conventional stuff today is cheaper. Its made differently.

Most people I know go for organic milk because the regular stuff turns bad so quickly.

[whatthehey]

5. College is certainly out of line, but houses/cars are apples and oranges

Last edited Tue Mar 22, 2016, 09:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Use median sq footage of house in 75 and correct current price and that one likely went down (incidentally number is 1645 sq ft in 1975 and now somewhere north of 2392; 2010 latest figure I could find, mnore than a 40% increase, and with amenities like AC far more universal than then too).

And cars aren't even the same species as the 75s in terms of quality, reliability and safety.

I also notice there is no TV, appliances or furniture included.

[hfojvt]

37. furniture and appliances are rare purchases

then again, so is a home and a car.

The price of both a "new home" and a "new car" though, have always been out of MY reach. Even the house I grew up in was three or four years old when dad bought it in 1964. I can remember though (so it must have happened in the 1970s) dad putting down tile in the basement, building a dividing wall and then later some crude pieces of furniture (our famous 'divider' was a home made shelf 8 feet wide and 6 feet tall where we stored a lot of our games and things. For years, my little brother's "bedroom" was an open area in the back of the basement until dad built another room under the stairs.

Then they carpeted the upstairs one room at a time, built a screen porch in the back, and a second garage and much later, in 1979, a family room.

Nowadays my siblings are buying huge houses (for smaller families) with all of that stuff already in it. Dad has five kids, most of my siblings only two (my older sister has three from two marriages).

I also find median income to be a sketchy measure. Because its rise and fall does not necessarily impact everybody. For a concrete example, here are the upper limits of each fifth (in 2001 dollars)

1975 - 14,572 - 27,404 - 41,312 - 59,436 - 94,771 (the top 5% made more than this)

so 40% of households made less than $41,312 and 20% made less than $14,572 (in 2001 dollars)

now 2007 (the most recent year I have in my file)

2007 - 20,300 - 39,100 - 62,000 - 100,000 - 177,000

Seems to me that the 2nd group, for example which used to make between 14,572 and 27,404 and later made between 20,300 and 39,100 is mostly better off, even though they are below a median income which is falling or staying the same. The top 40% is also much better off used to make over $41,312 and now makes more than $62,000.

Share of income looks like this (including number of households)

1975 - 72,867 - 4.4% - 10.5 - 17.1 - 24.8 - 43.2 - 15.9
2005 - 114,384 - 3.4% - 8.6 - 14.6 - 23.0 - 50.4 - 22.2

Smaller slices of the pie for everybody except the top 20% and the top 5%.

[spooky3]

53. Wish I could agree about appliances' being rare purchases.

The quality has gone way down, though features are up and prices are down, since 1975.

I had a dishwasher in one house that lasted 24 years, but have had 4 in the present house, with numerous major repairs to the first 3, and two class action lawsuits. Friends and repair people tell similar stories about other appliances they have had.

[jg10003]

55. Very true, My parents had a refrigerator for 30 years with no repairs needed.

[phylny]

58. We just replaced an 8-year-old refrigerator.

The guy who came out to try to repair it said, "Is it about 8 years old?" He said that's about how long they last. It would have been expensive to repair, so we got a new one.

He said, "You can get a Subzero, which will last maybe 15-20 years" but then we priced one and it was way out of our range.

[awoke_in_2003]

66. The Sub Zero won't last any longer

The only difference between it and Whirlpool is expensive crap vs slightly more affordable crap. Both are probably made in the same 3rd world country.

[snooper2]

73. Sub Zero's are produced in Madison, Wisconsin - Why do people make stuff up when you have googles?

I mean, it literally takes four seconds to get the answer...Fuck, when you start type "where are sub ze - it fills in the rest for you LOL

where are sub zero refrigerators made

[shanti]

61. yup

and you're pushing it if you can get 10 years out of a large appliance nowadays. i replaced all of my appliances in 2004. the only one that still works ok is the stove. microwave and dishwasher both badly need replacing now. the fridge already has been once. planned obsolescence, i guess.

[LisaM]

51. They didn't include rent and that has certainly increased

I know it has as a percentage of income, and income has gone down. And urban apartments area a LOT smaller.

[Hoyt]

52. Exactly. My 75 car was nothing like even the cheapest available nowadays.

Food is relatively cheaper.

To properly gauge inflation, you need comparable products, or at least make some adjustments. Not sure that has been reflected in the chart.

[cprise]

64. No, the larger houses are a liability, if anything

They require more energy and upkeep, and the financial sector is as responsible as anyone for encouraging people into the sprawl.

But you do have a point about cars.

[Jim Beard]

70. Many people buy larger homes as an investment and a way to

save money even though they will face a Capital Gains Tax when they sell.

[whatthehey]

76. But they are more expensive

You can buy a 1645 sq ft house at a median price lower than the overall median.

[Helen Borg]

6. Great! I'll have a bunch of eggs and a carton of milk with my movie ticket.

And then I'll mail a letter to myself! Life is good!

[Fast Walker 52]

7. still-- wages haven't kept up with the decline in the dollar over the past 40 years.

also, what about medical costs, or apartment rent. Why is it that people feel poorer?

[jwirr]

30. That is the point. With the wages we had in 75 we are paying

much more for the items listed.

[LiberalArkie]

8. It seems that most of the items that go into cost of living adjustments are lower but

real cost of living items are higher.

[edhopper]

9. the median income is down

from 20 years ago. And i have seen the older minumum wage adjusted much higher than what is shown here.

Also there is a small but significant effect as more income goes to the top 5% and 1% that raises the median income.

And median income doesn't show where in the lower half most people are.

Most of that group in in the 10K to 30K range.

so it is weighted on both ends. more people making more, more people making less.

[redruddyred]

10. in many places, minimum wage is less than 8.25 an hour nt

[Gormy Cuss]

14. The chart may be using a national average n/t

[redruddyred]

15. i wonder how it would look had they charted for 2011

before all the new labor movements. nowadays even walmart doesn't start at $7.25.

[former9thward]

75. Walmart starts at $9.00.

They will start at $10.00 later this year.

[redruddyred]

77. out of the goodness of their cherubic corporate hearts of course!

this has nothing at all to do with organized labor!

[former9thward]

78. Nothing to do with organized labor.

They want to reduce turnover at entry level jobs. It is expensive to hire and train people.

[redruddyred]

79. you're delusional

i've worked these jobs and they could really give a fuck. it's all about keeping ppl scared enough for their job in order to not demand better working conditions. at best the wage raise was a PR stunt.

[former9thward]

80. Its clear you are just making stuff up.

I schooled you on it and you just continue.

[redruddyred]

81. welcome to my ignore list, winner

I WINNNNN!!!!!111

[tclambert]

11. If I recall, 1975 was in the middle of a bad inflationary period.

Ford gave his "Whip Inflation Now" speech and started passing out WIN buttons in late 1974. I don't know if it makes much difference, but it might be interesting to see this chart with 1985 as the baseline, or 1970.

[malthaussen]

20. The peak, actually.

Hard as it is to believe, inflation went down during the Carter administration, only to take off on wings of eagles under Reagan.

-- Mal

[jtuck004]

34. ?

1977-1981
1981-89

http://inflationdata.com/articles/charts/decade-inflation-chart/

[malthaussen]

35. I was referencing a different graph.

http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2012/12/30/stagflation-what-really-happened-in-the-70s/

After a peak in 1975, the rate of inflation drops, then turns upward. Your chart gives the results for the whole decade, and does not account for fluctuations within decades.

-- Mal

[jtuck004]

39. One thing people need to know is that the way reagan dropped that was by neglecting people.

He was the first to tell us that bank$ter/jihadists were more important to take care of than working people.

Turns out, when you don't pay your bills, when you quit investing in people, you can pretend to a better economy. But it's their kid's kids who will begin to pay a very dear price for that short-sightedness.

[Cryptoad]

12. Items not well defined

[malthaussen]

21. Seriously.

I happen to have been alive and buying stuff in 1975, and some of those alleged prices are out of whack for the area in which I live (suburban Philly). In particular, my college tuition at a state-funded university (Temple) was significantly cheaper in 1980 than the price shown (but PA had one of the better state systems for college). I bought a brand-new Pinto in 1976, and it was also cheaper (but of course, a Pinto is an economy car, and thus not average). Can't speak to some of the prices (I was not looking for houses, then), and a few don't bear comparison because I could get them at a store on the NAS where I worked for much less than the normal retail price. (Not the PX, the grocery store, although prices in the PX were very cheap, too -- like .25 for a pack of cigarettes).

-- Mal

[ProfessorGAC]

36. I Had A Pinto Too

Bought it near the end of 1973, so it would have been a '74. IIRC, i paid less than $2k out the door, so i'm not sure how that applies unless economy and luxury cars experienced the same right of price inflation.

That being said, i bought a Cougar in late '77 (working for going on two years at that point, and it was 5 grand before tax, title and licence. Nice car, not sure it would have been high end luxury.

My private college education was quite a bit less than purported here, but if you include Harvard, Yale, Brown and Stanford in the average then maybe ok. But i did go to a school that was still around 70% of Northwestern and including fees and book, before scholarships applied, it was still under $2400 per year. (Seem to recall around 1k plus maybe 180 for books each semester.)

I am surprised by a few of the things on this list, though. Pleasantly so.

[hfojvt]

43. house costs are going to vary anyway, depending on location

When I was house hunting in 2002, I looked at a couple of new houses in a nothing burg (but also a suburb of KCMO) for $100,000. I thought they were crap though. They were small, no basements, small yards (that were steep), no driveway, etc. I looked at some $20,000 houses in a nothing burg even further from work. They were 50 years old or so. Looked at a $70,000 in Platte City and a $57,000 house in Edgerrton, Mo. The last one was over 100 years old. Had a nice big fenced yard. Another house in Weston, Mo that I remember was decently priced but sort of had a junk pile in it's jungle of a back yard, plus there was a really steep road up to it, and the little bridge said "impassable during high water". I looked at houses in St. Joseph and Cameron as well.

Finally went across the river in Kansas and there were many to look at in the under $50,000 and even under $30,000 range. Some I rejected based on the outside alone. Finally settled on a large house with a large fenced yard for $35,000.

I bought my first car in 1986. It was a 1973 Chevy Nova that I got for $300. I cannot remember what I was paying for milk, except 99 cents for half a gallon in the late 1990s in Wisconsin. That was the cheapest in Wisconsin since it came in bags.

[Moostache]

13. In 1975, my father worked in the steel industry, my mom stayed home with us kids...

The family lived an upper middle class lifestyle, including family dinners EVERY night, ANNUAL vacation trips to Florida (Disney World, Busch Gardens, Sea World, etc.) and a single income provided it all. In the late 1980's, my brother and I (and later my sister) all went to college and came out the other side with ZERO student debt...

Fast forward to 2015...

My wife and I both work nearly 55-60 hrs a week. Our combined income has less spending power than my father's income alone held in '75. Vacations are near impossible for time and cost. Our kids our going to have student debt the size of our first mortgage when they graduate and the cost of living continues to rise at a rate that pushes us closer to lower middle class status (whatever THAT means any more) than to the top.

The costs are one thing, and they are seriously out of alignment; but the distribution of wealth and concentration at the very top is another thing altogether. The top 0.01% own more than the bottom 50% combined (or worse) and that is fundamentally destabilizing for a representative republic, period. We must change that or very bad things are just over the horizon...

[redruddyred]

17. why even have kids at this point, i wonder,

it's just another tactic for the 1% to control you
it all seems so hopeless

[roamer65]

59. It's the reason for the declining birth rates in the G8 countries.

Japan is especially hard hit. Germany as well. Children are simply becoming unaffordable.

[redruddyred]

82. what dyou think of The Billary's assertions that legalizing unauthorized immigrants

is the key to mitigating an aging population
gonna wade into semixenophobe territory here, but no wonder the white blue collar guys are pissed at her

[whatthehey]

18. But I have another anecdote

My dad never made more than $10 an hour all his working life, and in 75 was working long night shifts in a dead end job. We lived in a 800 sq ft place with no central heat and no air. We ate cheap mass produced food and I don't remember a vacation that wasn't a school trip.

Fast forward to 2015 and I'm making comfortably into 6 figures in a nice middle class house with 4 more rental properties owned outright, an aspirational car and all the leisure spending I desire (which admittedly other than being a peripatetic bar trivia maven is not much).

Why does yours say more about cost of living than mine?

[LanternWaste]

25. Who claimed as much?

"Why does yours say more about cost of living than mine?"

Who claimed as much?

[Moostache]

33. I don't take your point...

What are you implying?
I am really having a hard time with your post and trying to determine if I am misinterpreting you or if my initial instincts were on point when I read that...would you care to expound on your meaning? (Because at first blush that comment reads like "I got mine, you lazy bums, so screw the rest of the people who aren't as crafty in real estate rentals as me"...)

Please accept my apologies if I have assigned motive where none was intended.

[whatthehey]

41. No. I'm implying, or rather explicitly stating, anecdotes are not data

There are millions of people worse off than their parents and millions better off. DU tends to both welcome and consider normative the former, and resent and dismiss as exceptions the latter, as can be shown by different reactions to them here and many other threads. Rationally, everyone should simply accept both positive and negative anecdotes neutrally, and as having no, or technically an infinitesimally small, impact on the larger economic story. But overall (and not cherrypicked and misleading like the above) data show slow incremental improvement in real median income at all economic levels, certainly outstripped by the very highest earners, which is certainly a problem, but the unceasing doomer DU drumbeat that all but the ultra-rich are losing ground and at grave economic risk is just bullshit that needs to be challenged despite its ubiquity. Are some losing and at grave risk? Obviously, and I vote to raise my taxes to help them every single chance I get, because that's what civilized societies do. Others however are in better shape despite not being within a country mile of the 1%, because despite what DU doomers say, the US economy and labor market are not custom designed to make people poor and keep them that way. Above all, I want to reflect reality, not wallowing in the constant self-justifying doomer nonsense.

[HughBeaumont]

16. Necessities: They're KILLING US.

Elizabeth Warren, prior to her being a Senator, gave this presentation at the Harvard Lecture Series. Everyone should take time and watch this . . . she's just as right then as she is now.

[malthaussen]

19. Interesting that the chart uses 1975 as a baseline...

... considering it was just about the peak of the period of double-digit inflation that characterized the early 70's. To take one glaring example, gasoline prices in 1975 were already .25 higher in contemporary dollars than they had been in, say, '71. I think the differences would be even more striking if a different period were used for comparison. Postal rates, for example went from .08 in 1971 to .10 in '74, and really were not .13 until 1976 (the .13 rate took effect on 31 December 1975).

OTOH, as suggested upthread, prices for electronics are not even of the same order now as the prices in the early 70's, and even a big-screen plasma TV is cheaper now in constant dollars than a typical console color TV would have been.

On the gripping hand, things like a burger at McDonald's are probably a bit cheaper now than they were in the early '70s. I remember an ad campaign of McDonald's in 1972 touting the fact that one could get a burger, small fries, and a small coke and change back from your dollar. (It's even on YT!) According to the 'Net, the same three items would run $3.39 now, which is cheaper adjusted for inflation (and just as nutritious as ever!).

On yet another hand (what strange alien creature is this, with four hands and counting?), air travel, vacations, luxury cruises are probably an order of magnitude cheaper now than in the early 70's. According to AHLA, https://www.ahla.com/content.aspx?id=4072 , average price of a hotel room is almost exactly equal in the two eras adjusted for inflation. (assuming 4.36 2015 dollars equals one 1975 dollar).

As for housing, I happen to have lived in the same apartment since 1973, so I can do a direct comparison. Rent is virtually the same, adjusted for inflation, but services are not. Most significant is the fact that in 1973, my utilities were included in the rent, whereas that has not been the case for many years now. As I live in an area that actually has weather, this is a major difference in cost. Several other services have been cut or reduced, but that is trivial compared to paying for utilities. Lower-end apartments, though, have increased more in rent (as a percentage) than the one in which I live.

-- Mal

[Ursus Rex]

24. "Gripping hand" ftw.

Maybe some weird Porter with the 4 arms

But I think the biggest difference in the two eras is what you can do after you pay all the same things - a phone, for example, in 1975 meant 1-3 handsets on the same line, with few extras (no Caller ID, etc) and a relatively modest cost (my earliest phone bills in college, mid-80's, were like $30/mo). Now each person in many households have a phone, with each line costing $50 or more. Each line is only a bit more, but when you aggregate phoneS, cable, internet, etc., for each household, there's a lot of costs that just didn't exist in 1975 and little marginal increase in real income to cover them. And of course, some costs have soared - education and health care are the first that come to mind.

[malthaussen]

27. Yeah, the evaluation is incomplete without insurance costs.

I bet pharmaceuticals are much higher, too, and more of them are used per capita. Both due to the rigors of age for Baby Boomers, and due to the fact that many more meds are prescribed now than heretofore.

Phone is actually not a good comparison for me, as I have a single land-line with the same rotary phone I had in 1973. But for the average household, I agree, this makes a big difference. More things are "necessary" now than in 1975, such as cable, internet, etc, all of which the servicing companies insist on "bundling" to "save money" (while raising the actual cost of communicating). Since real income has gone down since '75, disposable income is probably even less. The things that have gotten cheaper (electronics, especially) do not save enough to offset the things that have become more expensive.

-- Mal

[mountain grammy]

22. Stamps! look at stamps! The thing Congress likes to control with an iron fist,

and demonize as some kind of money sucking monster! Let's privatize the post office and take care of that issue!

[malthaussen]

28. And that chart actually lies about stamps.

The price was ten cents throughout 1975. It became 13 cents on 31 December of that year (and people were, of course, outraged: the Republic was doomed!).

-- Mal

[beastie boy]

23. So what's your point, liberal?

Just grab some milk and eggs and make yourself comfortable in a movie theater.

Problem solved!..........................

[edhopper]

26. And what was the price of internet, cell phones and cable in 1975

which can be hundreds a month for a family now.

Oh, that's right.

And then there is Health costs.

[IMG][/IMG]

[CountAllVotes]

40. huh?

There was no internet nor cell phones in 1975. I did not have the money to buy a television set (about $400 at the time for a color one which was more than I earned take home for the month, so no, I didn't have one of those nor a car for that matter).

I had my first full-time job in 1975. It paid $2.88/hr. and yes, it was an awful job but, I did it anyway and yes, it did have fairly decent benefits that came with it that did not cost a lot.

I rented a studio apartment at that time. Cost was $175.00/month without utilities and is was your typical dump of the day but it was a place to live anyway.

As for the rest of these figures, some may be accurate. I think it depended greatly upon where you were living at that time and that $175.00 a month for rent was half of what I earned take home every month, so I lived on the other $175.00 a month which was not so easy to do.

[edhopper]

50. I meant there are cost that weren't there in 1975

and I can tell you from experience, rents in places like New York City and San Francisco are much higher than inflation.

Also as people have said, it takes two people working to tain what one wage earner did.

[Csainvestor]

29. Without child care costs and medical

This graph is useless. Medical coverage, medicine, and child care are massive costs.

Back then people also received pensions. Now people have to pay very large amounts into 401ks.

Also what's missing is that two people have to work now instead of one. usually if someone can make 50000, housing costs way more than 270k and someone can't make 50000 where a house costs 270K.

Another very important thing that's missing is state taxes. State taxes and very reggressive the poor in the middle class pay the bulk of state taxes and they have increased exponentially since the seventies.

[B Calm]

47. I know my son pays a little over $800 dollars a month for daycare for my granddaughter.

[zstat]

31. What is really making a difference is commhnication costs - cell phone, cable tv, internet costs.

Somebody forgot these biggies.
Communication and entertainment costs today are way beyond what they were in 1975.
Sure, a land line phone was $25/month, local and long distance.
Can you imagine paying that amount for your cell. Who had cable/dish or internet providers at that time?
Very few.

[Auggie]

42. +1

[SoCalDem]

49. We had an antenna (free tv)

and rented our phone from MaBell for $10 a month

a prescription for basic meds was about $4.

rented a 3 bedroom brick home for $125.00 a month

My pay was about 2.75 hr,,and my husband made $900 a month

we had PLENTY of money.. and no debt..

[B Calm]

72. We live in a rural area and the only way we can watch TV now is on satellite. When TV stations went

digital it made our TV antenna worthless. Back in the early 70's I would have never had dreamed in my wildest dreams that someday I would have to pay someone just to watch CBS, NBC, or ABC.

[Mendocino]

32. In 1977

I dropped out of school for a while. I was able to walk off the street, get hired the same day into a no skill job that paid $4.10 an hour. That was almost twice minimum wage at the time. $4.10 then would be about $16 today.

[Bucky]

44. 1975 was a time of pretty steep inflation. If your baseline was 1965, it'd be much worse

[B Calm]

48. So true!

[roamer65]

57. From the baseline of 1965, prices are generally about 10 times higher.

Magically, move the decimal point to left one position and you have the roundabout 1965 price for items essential to human existence.

Computers, televisions, iPads...blah...blah do not count. They are luxury items.

[JDPriestly]

45. It depends on where you live.

And that is what the problem is.

How much money do you have to earn to rent a house in Los Angeles? These are 2014 numbers ( and remember, our population is about $110,116,000.):

As you can imagine, the numbers for Los Angeles are staggering. It would take an annual household income of $97,160 just to get the keys to a median-priced rental home in this market, Zillow says.

Keep in mind that this kind of income would nearly put you in the top one-fifth of income earners in the country.

In L.A, however, it would get you a smack-dab-in-the-middle, $2,429-a-month home.

Zillow's median-rent calculations skew toward single-family homes, its representatives have told us in the past. So this doesn't necessarily apply to average apartments, which tend to run about $1,000 or so less.

. . . .

Put another way, Zillow says, each person in a two-earner family in L.A. would have to make $24.50 an hour, 40 hours a week, in order to afford the rent on a median home in this market.

http://www.laweekly.com/news/it-takes-nearly-100-000-a-year-in-income-to-rent-an-average-la-house-5289964

Remember, a lot of people (like us) move to Los Angeles because this is where the job is, the one we can't do or find anywhere else, and not because we have the money or can even earn enough money to afford to live here in the style in which we might live in some other city or town in America.

I don't think you could find a house anywhere in Los Angeles, and certainly not in Silicon Valley for $270,000. Nor could you buy gasoline for $2.57 or $2.38 in Los Angeles or Silicon Valley or San Francisco, maybe nowhere in California. Milk is also more expensive here.

The median income in Los Angeles varies widely from area (ghetto you could call it because our city is so divided into housing regions by income and to some extent ethnicity and/or race -- we have Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, etc. as well as Bel Air and Beverly Hills) of our city to area (ghetto). In downtown, the median income is $15,003 per year but in Bel Air it is $207,938 per year. Assuming a 40 hour week, 52 weeks of the year, that is 2080 hours a year and in downtown that amounts to $7.47 per hour and in Bel Air that amounts to about $100 per hour. That's median income.

Note that this list does not include the many, many homeless people in Los Angeles. Our city is trying to house all the homeless, but it is a nearly impossible job. So we see tents or carts with sleeping gear stationed under bridges and in other areas of the city. Beggars, and I have even encountered them IN grocery stores. The poverty in Los Angeles is easy to see. Yet look at the list of median wages from which I have drawn the following information.

So there is the rub. Let's look at some areas of Los Angeles and the median income:

Bel-Air, $207,938

Pacific Palisades, $168,008

Brentwood, $112,927

Beverlywood, $105,253

Northridge, $67,906 (There is a University of California there.)

East Los Angeles, $38,621

Koreatown, $30,558

Watts, $25,161

Chinatown, $22,754

http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/income/median/neighborhood/list/

People who know Los Angeles will know what these areas are. You can tell why I use the word "ghettos" about some areas of Los Angeles if you look at the names of some of these areas.

This list is just a sampling of the kind of disparity of wealth that we in big cities are aware of. If you look at this and realize that so many but not all of the middle income areas, the areas that have a median income that is represented as median for the nation as a whole in the OP are further away from the center of town. They are suburbs or out and require that people who work in the centers of the city (and there are several) have to drive to get to work -- drive on very crowded freeways. It is very difficult to live in Los Angeles without a car.

I'd like to add that the prices on food also vary according to the neighborhood in Los Angeles. They can vary greatly. That I suppose is due to the differences in the rents on the spaces of the stores. I live in a less expensive area, and the food here is cheaper in our grocery than it is in the Wilshire/Fairfax area even.

Everything about life and the quality of everything is different from community to community in Los Angeles.

We are a huge city. You can take a bus from downtown to Santa Monica on the coast, but there is no metro-rail at this time, no train. The West side tends to be the expensive side of town, and even the transportation to get there is impractical and time-consuming.

So the numbers in the OP represent the medians and averages across the country, but they do not represent the fundamental truth about our country that IS REPRESENTED by the numbers in Los Angeles. We have tremendous differences according to your class with regard to where you live, what you earn, and what your opportunities are in life if you are a young child.

It's called income disparity. We see it very clearly in cities like Los Angeles and in areas like Silicon Valley. And it is what Bernie Sanders is responding to. It is rather understandable that his message did not resound so well in the Midwest where I think these disparities in wealth are not so extreme and so obvious. But here on the West Coast where the jobs are and the weather is enticing, boy, is it obvious.

[jg10003]

54. Bureau of Labor Statistics - Consumer Price Index inflation calculator link

This is a very interesting site, also fun in a very nerdish sort of way.

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

My father bought a new Ford Mustang in 1972 for $2500 for the deluxe model, that's $14,180 today. Today a new Mustang starts at 24,145.

[B Calm]

60. In 1976 I bought a brand new Ford F150 for $3,000.00. A new one today costs around $30,000.00

or more. Now imagine if your wages went up at the above rate. My union hourly wage in 1976 was around $7.00, so today I should be getting around $70.00 per hr

[snooper2]

74. Yeah, and it was leaking oil from the rear crankshaft seal after 23K miles LOL

[B Calm]

83. Never had any problems with that truck.

[Recursion]

69. Not if you limit it to the options available in 1972 (nt)

[jg10003]

56. Don't forget interest on saving accounts, 5% in 1971 with no fees.

When I was 13 in 1971 my mother took me to the bank to open a savings account with $50 I received as a gift from my grandparents. The interest rate was 5% and no monthly fees. Today you are lucky if you get even 1%, and of course there will be fees.

[B Calm]

62. CD paying 5% would be sweet. I'm retired and on a limited income.

[mathematic]

63. Wow, a new house is 25% cheaper now!

That's remarkable.

$209k @ 9% = about 1700 per month

$270 @ 4% = about 1300 per month

[slipslidingaway]

67. Medical care!!! Utilities? nt

[Recursion]

68. Ah, inflation trutherism

Where would politics be without it?

[surrealAmerican]

71. It looks like that "median income" is median household income.

In 1975, this was typically from a single wage-earner. This is no longer the case in 2015. The decline in wages is greater than this chart would indicate.