What minimum wage buys, then and now

[oldhippydude]

9. it's actually worse than that..

starting sometime in the late 70's a couple of items were removed from calculations in the cost of living calculations.. those being fuel and food..the justification was that they were too volatile for analysis..by totally ignoring these factors, the COLA calculations underestimated the true rate of inflation..

while the illustration mentions gasoline.. the energy in general is now much higher.. as for food, we are caught with a higher world population, thus consumption, depletion of resources (especially maritime sources), as well as factors of climate change.. classical Malthusian problems..

throw a Little greed into the mix, and bingo!!!