SENDING YOUR KIDS THROUGH COLLEGE ON $2.86 PER HOUR
Addendum to my post below on wages: Just heard a radio guy in his fifties describe his old man, a construction electrician, who fed his family in the 50s and 60s and sent his kids to college on what he made. During the 50s his dad was earning $22 per hour (of course there was overtime too) on a good union job. Today the same job still pays $22 per hour, and it is a disaster.
How bad is that? Look at the chart. According to all studies, comparing today's dollar with a 1950 dollar shows a decline of 87% of it's purchasing power (see here). In other words a dollar in 1950 will buy thirteen cents worth of something today. That means todays' construction electrician is working for poverty wages when compared to the really good union jobs through the fifties and sixties. Could the guy who sent his kids through college on a construction electrician's wages in the fifties have the same job today paying the exact $22 per hour send any kid anywhere?
$22 per hour is $2.86 today. What is wrong with this picture? These guys have guns, and even Ben Stein said it today on FOX. This spread between top and middle of the low end cannot continue. The government will be overthrown.
6 comments:
Well, I grew up with a dad who was an engineer making about $12,000 per year in the 70's and a mom that was a teacher making maybe $6,000 per. Our house was small, we had a station wagon and a foreign car, and paid cash for everything. We lived in the midwest and everything was swell.
I and my wife are engineers making about 100K in the midwest. We do fine, but still practice what our parents taught us. Just because I have some cash in my pocket between paydays doesn't mean I need to spend it. My kids think we're just barely ekeing by and that's how I want to keep it. THAT is what we need to teach our children. Lord knows, television isn't going to teach it to them.
A good old-fashioned depression is what we need to get our collective heads back on our shoulders. People will weather it like we always have. We're tougher and more resilient than most elitists give us credit for. When it's over, we'll be back to saving money and making do with what we have.
THEN and only then can we get the sustained, broad-based boom that accompanies good times.
Civengine, my family was very similar to yours, right down to the professions. I agree that people have forgotten how to save and live modestly, and that we need to relearn that skill.
Part of our economic problems are individual recklessness. The runaway inflation of the 70's taught an awful lot of people that the way to get ahead was to buy something while putting down as little money as possible rather than saving. Just as the Depression-era lessons lived on into our parent's lives, the Stagflation era kids are reflecting the era in which they grew up.
Still, there is real wage deflation in most occupations, unless it's a government job. Within a few years, unless you are a government employee, you will start seeing that in engineering. It's already happening in many areas. Wages are beginning to drop for EEs, for example.
I think Howard's post stands. The only real difference between 1960 dollars and today's dollars is that there is a much higher tax rate now, largely courtesy of Medicare and Soc. Sec.
We have a far larger government at all levels now than we did then. This is crushing people. As my mother pointed out to me recently, we fought WWII without having to build the massive governmental edifice we have today.
Another aspect is the disproportinate salaries that top executives pay themselves, yes they may have the management skill but does that justify making paupers of the workers on the floor?
No way in hell they were making $22.00/hr in the 50's and 60's. When I became journeyman electrician in 1977, the pay was $11.77/hr ( I.B.E.W local 34 Peoria, Ill. )
I think it all depended on the area of the country and the type of construction. The guy I quoted worked high rise buildings in Manhattan and Boston.
He's feeding you a line of shit. I.B.E.W local 1 ( New York, New York ) scale was about $3.00/hr more then we were getting. In 77 the New York city connstruction biz was dead and we had a ton of the local 1 guys working out of our local. They even made a deal to send some of their 5th year apprentices out to us. I really got tired of hearing them brag about that $3.00/hr.
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