In the 1970s, the average income was the equivalent of roughly $75,000 by today’s standards, but inflation means that salary just doesn’t cut it
The equivalent part there is already taking account of inflation. Idiots.
In the 1970s, the average income was the equivalent of roughly $75,000 by today’s standards, but inflation means that salary just doesn’t cut it
The equivalent part there is already taking account of inflation. Idiots.
The problem isn’t inflation; it’s women in the workforce. An individual income of $75,000 (adjusted) in 1970 would feed the family; today you need two $75,000 jobs to achieve the same relative position.
“The equivalent part there is already taking account of inflation.”
If inflation figures actually mean anything in the real world. State controlled data is so debased its pointless thinking it has any value beyond propaganda.
@ Jim
This is USA not Venezuela so it’s only a few %age points wrong: the reason why the equivlent salary “isn’t enough” is because expectations have soared in the meantime. See Tim’s repeated references to the “linen shirt” (I do have *one* linen shirt which I quite like, albeit it is starting to get worn out).
? Andrew M
Think about 1970. (If you can remember it) The standard of living. Colour TV existed but the vast majority couldn’t afford one. A B&W TV was a luxury. The majority couldn’t afford a car. Clothes. We’re still in the era of the ‘Sunday best’. Fashion was largely for the wealthy. Holidays. Two weeks a year, usually not abroad. If you could afford to go away. Telephones. Most people didn’t. Diet. Most people rarely ate out (unless it was a work canteen) A cup of tea & cake at Lyons was a treat. Very limited diets at home. About 90% of what’s available in the shops now, wasn’t.
You want to go back to living at 1970 standards, you could easily do it on one person’s income. But that’s not the standard people aspire to live at.
It’s as with the climate “crisis”. On the wireless today the advocate actually stated flat out that we need to “go back to pre-industial conditions”.
You first, I’m already 15 years older than the average lifespan for a person of my background back then.
They always forget the size and difference of the nation.
I make around 55k and it is ‘cutting it’s, indeed, that’s a decent income in the part of the country where I live.
But it’s always ‘what do you need to live comfortably in San Francisco’ and Yuma may as well not exist for those people.
‘You first, I’m already 15 years older than the average lifespan for a person of my background back then.;
Yeah jgh. It’s entertaining to look at the lifespan of authors I enjoy. So many of them were younger than me or just about my age when they booted the bucket.
I’m already 15 years older than the average lifespan for a person of my background back then.;
Yeah. I should have added this to my previous comment. People worked much harder for their money in 1970. It was common, the working day started at 7:30. And a lot worked 6 day weeks. People talk now about how demanding their jobs are & ‘stress’. I don’t think they’ve any idea what demanding & stress are.
I’m thinking back to what I was doing in ’70. I’d probably be on the phone from a little after 9AM through till 5:00. On one or two calls at a time with 4 backed up behind. The people on the other end, exercising their power & authority. Because I was about as junior as it came. So I’d be sneered at, shouted at, criticised & sworn at. All of which I had to take politely & deferentially. God help me if I made a mistake. Or somebody else did that I didn’t spot. That was just the way people went on in those days. It was hardly a stress free working environment.
Don’t suppose it was much different in any job then. You’d get the same working in a shop or factory. Nobody much cared for your feelings. Lot more stick than carrot.
“1970 … A B&W TV was a luxury.” I don’t think so. My girl friend of the time was from a working class family but they had a TV and so did all their friends. They weren’t members of the proletarian “aristocracy” of coal miners. They also had a car – small and old, but a car nonetheless. They were doing it on one income.
I agree, it sounds like BiS is talking about the 60s rather than the 70s for some of that. But the main thrust of the argument still stands: if you’re happy with the living standards of 50 years ago, you could probably achieve that with one or two days work a week, or even on ‘benefits’.
Lots of people are knocking @AndrewM’s point, but I’m sure he’s well aware of the meaning of inflation or how quality of life has moved on in absolute terms. What he said is that for doubling the number of people in the household who are engaged in the workforce makes it twice as hard to reach the same relative position. Which is the linen shirt point: whether you feel “in the middle” or “at the top” (‘cept pretty much nobody ever does, cos they just start feeling like their new social level is “normal” or even “average” and look on enviously at the tier above) is a relative phenomenon not an absolute one.
The more interesting counterpoint to @AndrewM is … was it historically weird that at that time for women not to be working? In which case it’s a slightly unrepresentative time to benchmark against. Go back a bit further in history and there was plenty of “cottage industry” with women doing piecework at home. Also Timmy’s eternal point about household labour being slashed by washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners etc.
No BiS, housing is a big item that has far outstripped the official inflation rates and salaries. In the late 60’s and early 70’s a rule of thumb was that a new house would cost 3-4x the average median income. Currently we are at 10-15x the median income – so limited opportunity to live by 70’s standards.
1970? First time voter and the only time I have ever voted Labour (Harold Wilson). He lost.
I would agree with you ADL, but… Home ownership now is far more common now than in 1970. Typical couple then would have been renting or living with one of the parents. Or maybe they were on a council housing list or had even won the jackpot & got one. It was far harder to get a mortgage then than it is now.
The why? Back in ’70, houses were priced pretty well on utility value. They were a depreciating asset not an “investment”. So lenders were cautious about lending. Big deposits & short repayment periods if they even considered you a sound prospect as a borrower. Don’t forget most people were hourly paid with nothing like the job security they have now. Even with the money I was earning & a 25% deposit, I got turned down on something I could easily have afforded.
Anon,
Some women did work in the 1970s; but fewer of them (labour participation rate ~45% versus ~60% today) and they earned less (full time women earned 60% of men’s wages) and they worked fewer hours (can’t find numbers, but it feels truthy).
If they looked at household income rather than individual income, they’d get a different answer.
BiS… By’75 things had begun to warm up. We purchased a newbuild Wimpey semi for £10k in Scotland (95% mortgage and a 5% deposit (loan from my bank). You could buy a Barratt Homes version for £8.5K. Builders had begun concreting over fields in every direction. In ’79 we moved (for work) to London and obtained mortgage from Woolwich BS (Houndsditch). You had to be an existing account holder and wait your turn in the queue – money was so tight the branch only gave out 6 mortgages each quarter.
A colour television only appeared in my childhood home in 1981 – three years after the mortgage was paid off. We saw Day of the Triffids in black and white, but Kessler in colour. The set was from Mitsubishi – it lasted the whole of the rest of the analog TV era.
My parents didn’t get a colour TV till well into the 90s.
@ bis
Actually houses started to become “an investment” in the late 1960s as the only worthwhile asset exempted from Wilson’s CGT, so you are only partially right.
They became a prime investment (during and) after the hyperinflation of Wilson’s second government in the 1970s
We had colour TV in the 70s then a teletext one and a prestel one in the 80s, then sat tv pretty early. But then pops was a electronic engineer FIEE designing colour TVs. Basically his whole career was riding the consumer electronics wave.
You had to be an existing account holder and wait your turn in the queue – money was so tight the branch only gave out 6 mortgages each quarter.
That’s how I remember it. I wanted to buy a house in Islington. The better part, as was. 3 floors, attic & a basement – 20K. I had 25% deposit & could easily have afforded the repayments. But no regular savings record & in those day’s job security was a week’s notice. BS’s didn’t want to know. That’d be worth couple of million, now? More if it was flatted.
As it was the 5k bought a boutique in Kensington, made a packet out of togs for totty.
“ You first, I’m already 15 years older than the average lifespan for a person of my background back then.”
I’ll listen to their argument them when they’ve had a wisdom tooth out without anaesthetic. Then we’ll discuss them not having antibiotics, lack f cancer treatments or any other healthcare beyond someone mopping their brow and giving them a stick to bite on.
My parents got their first car in 1968, a Morris Traveller, which they replaced in the early seventies with a putrid lime Renault 6. First B&W TV was 1968 also, we were brought up with Listen with Mother, not Watch with Mother.
I was born in the council house that I lived in until I left for uni. While at uni, in the late seventies, my parents bought their first house. By that time my mum had qualified as a social worker.
While we were growing up, my mum used to do piecework at home, such as trimming the rubber off shoe soles. The best job she had was sowing the sleeves for home boilers. They had to be turned inside out so we kids got paid to do that.
“APL
March 20, 2023 at 3:12 pm’
Again, there are wide regional differences.
Where I live the median home price is about 4 times median income.
Some places in the country it’s 15 times.
Having last bought a house 30 years ago I’m disconnected from the market, but I’m helping my Mum sell her house, and the initial valuation is 12.5 times what she paid for it, with a mortgage, 41 years ago. What’s the 41th root of 12.5… 6.35% per annum. If it wasn’t “ripe for modernisation” as the agents call it, it would have appreciated 16-fold – 7% per annum.
Anyway, that’s paying for her old age, as savings are supposed to.
I can’t remember exactly when we got a colour TV – probably early 70s – but it was just before Christmas and the Christmas Day movie was Wizard of Oz, which we’d seen before on TV in B&W. We were all disappointed to see it was a B&W film! What’s the point of a colour TV if they have B&W films, we said. We didn’t realise it switched to colour when they got to Oz…
I’ve never quite known how – maybe deposit help from dad’s parents? – but dad bought a house in 1960 when dad & mum got married – £1,400 – despite him being a bus conductor. Mum had 6 siblings and we were the only non-council house family so thought of as ‘posh’.
They never owned a car – who needed one when we got half price bus travel?
Dad’s passed away but mum is still in the house. Last July, the house 7 doors down sold for £560,000.
@AndrewM
In case I wasn’t being clear…which I probably wasn’t…
Some women did work in the 1970s; but fewer of them (labour participation rate ~45% versus ~60% today) and they earned less (full time women earned 60% of men’s wages) and they worked fewer hours (can’t find numbers, but it feels truthy).
If they looked at household income rather than individual income, they’d get a different answer.
Yeah. Women at work has gone up over the last couple of generations. Not disagreeing with that at all, I agree with your point that this has skewed what we view as an acceptable income (or standard of living) and probably had a knock-on effect on house prices too.
My point (or question) is whether we’re fooling ourselves a bit with the idea that “as it was in the mid-twentieth century, ’twas ever thus – only recently has this change taken place”. Women, especially married women, going out to work may be a relatively new phenomenon sociologically. But couple of hundred years ago, women were a big component of the labour force, and bringing in labour market income, by doing piecework at home. Going “out” to work was partly a factory system thing, wasn’t it? The Luddites wanted to keep the loom in the home? All this WFH telecommuting stuff is, despite technologically appearances, in many ways pro-Luddite…