As It Was, As It Always Shall Be

One of my Mom's favorite idioms was, "The more things change, the more they stay the same".

As I have discovered for myself over the years, it was also probably her most astute assertion. 

As most people who know me are aware, I am constantly (read: annoyingly so) proclaiming that we live in the single best time to be alive for the largest percentage of people on the planet, ever.

Ever, as in there has never been a better time to be alive since the dawn of time. Not for the vast majority of people currently scrambling to exist on this planet.

Prove me wrong.

Most people I know who contend I am wrong are simply ignorant of the facts. I do not mean ignorant in an insulting fashion, BTW, I just mean they simply do not know the truth.

Correction: I do mean "ignorant" in an insulting fashion if they are willingly overlooking the facts and facetiously denying the truth.

Because the truth is out there. Daily life has been dutifully recorded since the early 19th century by newspapers all over the world, in cities and towns very large and very small.

And copies of an ungodly number of those newspapers are available for your perusal all over the medium that has largely replaced the newspaper, the good ol' internet.

Copies are sometimes found lining the drawers of old dressers, too, such as a page of the Greeley Tribune that I found in old dresser just yesterday.

The page is a terrific slice of data about the state of the U.S. over two generations ago. I scanned several articles and some classified ads to post here for your consideration/evaluation.

The United States was in the midst of a crushing depression at the time of this newspapers publication - I believe it was just before Gerald Fords "W.I.N." campaign (Whip Inflation Now) was foisted upon the public.

Check how the lead in this article, though overall an optimistic tract, ends with a weird contradictory statement (...the manufacturing payrolls had been sluggish ever since the recession set in late 1973. Private wages and salaries overall increased...")

 

The short article below about the Dow Jones 30 hitting 800.69 just about brought tears to my eyes. The Dow Jones 30 was around 26,600.00 this morning...

Help wanted ads. 

Middle of a recession, jobs still being advertised. 

I love the ad at the bottom of the right-hand side column that is for a part time cook to prepare dinner Mon-Fri, 20 days a month...for 14 boys...pay is a whopping $130.00 a month.

All of those wages are monthly, BTW, save the one for the telemarketer promising $150.00 to $500.00 a week and "no shady tactics". Pretty sure that ad is still being run to this day.

Minimum wage in Colorado was $1.00 to $1.25 an hour in 1975 (it was .65 to .75 an hour in Kentucky).

Homes and apartments for rent in and around Greeley, Colorado. A town with a population of about 42,000 at that time. Average rent for a one bedroom apartment was around $115 a month - not including utilities. 

If you were working a minimum wage job for 40 hours a week you were earning $160.00 a month - before taxes. That means the average 1 bedroom apartment would be almost 80% of your income!

BTW, in 1975 to be in the top 1.1% of wage earners in the United States your yearly income had to exceed $50,000. 

O.M.G., as the kids like to exclaim.

Want the source? Don't be lazy, you have access to the same info I do - look it up!

New and used cars for sale. Car ads are always a good barometer of what the cost of living was...sort of. The average new car had a price tag of $4.950.00. The average price of a new car in 2020? $34,000, almost 6 & 1/2 times what it cost to buy a new car in 1975!

But wait...there are a few quality differences...

Cars made in 1975 were, generally speaking, gas-guzzling, oil-burning death traps that wore out quickly. Heck, if you bought a new car in 1975 and somehow managed to put 100,000 miles on the odometer, the manufacturer would feature you in a national ad.

New cars today are, hyperbole aside, amazing. The worst new car made today will go 300,000 miles with minimal maintenance, and with a blue-toothed enable satellite radio and nav system too boot.

And three to four times the fuel economy at half the emmissions. 

Not to mention (though I actually am) the safety improvements. 

Oh, and just for good measure, here is a prognosis for electric cars according to Consumer Reports.