So maths time…
If that cart is a weeks of groceries, it takes 1250 weeks of groceries to buy a house in 1980.
According to a 2024 USA today article the average family with kids spends $331 per week on groceries.
If the groceries per house ratio stayed the same, a house would be $413,750 in 2024.
The U.S. median home price was $412,000 in September 2023, according to Redfin.
I dunno seems pretty proportionate.
That’s not the issue.
Average annual household income in the US in 1980 was $20,020- 42% of a house (average cost of a house in the US in 1980 was actually $47K).
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1982/demo/p60-132.html
Average annual household income in the US in 2022 was $74,580- or 18% of a $412K house.
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html
And “household income” definition also changed: at the time the most common was that only the man of the household was working. So I’d say we are down to a quarter of what was earned then.
Damn. That’s some depressing perspective right there.
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I feel like it’s implying a standard of living. You got more for less, you owned a home. Maybe only one of the family was employed for that life.
Where the duck do you think the money to buy things was coming from?
I think that’s a little unfair of a comparison. The average house price in the US is $495k. The average house price in Ohio is $273k. Let’s take Brooklyn for example. In the 80’s houses were cheap in comparison to today. Ohio in the 80’s were probably on par for what they are today. There was no silicon valley in the 80’s. You didn’t have as much of the super rich mega mansions back then. So yeah, it’s going to sway the numbers.
If we’re going to have super rich mega mansions, then we should be taking care of everyone at a proportionate rate. If we’re not, then the tax for the rich is too low.
Income. Everything else can be proportional, but if income isn’t, we’re fucked.
Echoing this but change if to since :/
I agree the inflation would not be a huge deal but only if incomes had kept up. Couples are struggling to exist today doing two jobs (or more) each of which could have supported a small family just decades ago.
Furthermore:
- $25.00 in 1970 is worth $202.03 today
- $25,000 would be $202,030
- Home prices vary wildy depending on location and size of the home. It does not seem unreasonable that someone could spend $200 a week on groceries and live in a $200K home.
So the real question is how did pay in the most common industries keep up with inflation. I don’t think anyone is disputing costs rising at comparable rates. It’s our ability to keep up as earners.
so, by his numbers, we’re paying over 50% more for food and houses.
But they’re equally more expensive, so we’re getting screwed two ways, not just one.
The ratio of interest isn’t groceries:housing, it’s income:CoL
The first ratio may have stayed rather consistent, but the second has not.
Inflation vs income
Income hasn’t kept up with inflation, so you have a widening gap
The prices may be proportional, but the average “purchasing power” has decreased. Most family units have more than a single income now, but they still struggle.
Inflation goes up (which devalues our income), but our wages have gone up much slower… so we have a widening gap of “purchasing power” that people’s budget can feel
The “prices” may be proportional, but the ability to afford them is certainly not
It never said it was a week’s worth of groceries.
Its a reasonable assumption. Most of the visible foods are bulky items that are not stacked efficiently to be visible to the camera.
So now please do the comparison to income, based on what you think these people bring home.
Damn I’ve seen some really stupid takes on here but this one is really something special. Cherry picking the numbers here is so obvious and the ones that you ignore, like income, so blatant that I’m unsure how this isn’t flagged as straight up misinformation. That’s not even the stupidest part though believe it or not. Why would you even try to cook the books like this to make it seem like there’s nothing wrong with the home cost situation? How could trying to convince people of this fantastical situation possibly benefit you?
it’s not dumb at all.
that is, I don’t see what he’s saying is good or bad, just “food and housing have stayed a similar ratio”. Which is interesting.
But we should be wondering at the cost of groceries at the very least.
You don’t think it’s dumb to say that housing prices currently are proportionate and make sense?
Anybody else find it funny that her cart is just full of junk? No fresh fruit or vegetables to be seen. Some things never change in America.
Therenwas a time in the mid century where these things would be seen as great innovations. All the nutricional (i.e. Calories) without the hassle. Vitamins were discovered during the first half of the 20th century and it would take a while for science to conclude that all this processed food was total junk.
The fresh vegetable section is the first aisle in most grocery stores that I can think of. Any fresh fruit or vegetables she got would be at the bottom.
That’s insane. Sure they’re in the first aisle but they’re either sitting in the baby seat or making their way to the top as I’m loading other stuff.
I don’t like my fruit and veg all battered and bruised.
But her husband likes his fruits and veggies the same way he likes his wife…
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Looks to be all grains. I see so much pasta.
Even the picture itself is grainy
Her name is probably Carbra Walters
It wasn’t so popular back then, people ate processed food without fear, organic thing became popular more than 20 years later
I stayed at an Airbnb that had old cook books from the 70s. It was all processed crap, they didn’t even specify proper measurements, just add one can jalapenos.
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Hey don’t talk shit about sea shell pasta
Is that place on fire?
nah, just everyone was constantly smoking cigarettes, cigars and pipes. even the kids.
Yeah, but we had a no smoking section if you didn’t like the smell. Because smoke was great at staying on the right side of a rope…
the purpose of the “no smoking” section was to keep the rare non-smokers away, so their presence wouldn’t annoy the smokers. /s
Tbf she had to afford this with her 0$/hr wage
And her countless hours of unpaid labor!
Which oof sure, being a housespouse is often way harder and more responsibility than people would think (even the ones who benefit from it) … but damn being a housewife in the 50s? You know how much harder it was to cook back then?! Do laundry or vacuum or probably literally any household chore is so much easier and faster than today. Hell, even taking out the trash is easier not having to drag Oscar’s heavy ass house to the curb.
Between working her $3 an hour job
At least $3.10 per hour, thank you very much! That’s the same as $12.49 now.
Holy crap I was just guessing l didn’t think I’d be somewhat accurate.
Some old shithead GOP house rep was talking about how unreasonable a $15/hr minimum wage was because he used to make $4.50 when he was a teen working at a grocery store.
His $4.50 worked out to be $26/hr after inflation.
That’s also the average looking 35 year old from that time period.
This is 1970s, not 80s . Pretty sure a cart full o groceries was way over $20 in the eighties, after a card full of collected grocery chain stamps was saved and turned in. Inflation and all that.
Anyway… how bout some Suzy Qs, ‘Chun King’ (is that oriental flavor?), Kraft Mac N Cheese…and Hawaiian punch?
Break out the silver and spic-and-span those no-wax floors; the gobnah’s comin ovah to-nite!
The picture looks way more like it’s from the 60’s.
I remember back in those days we had time to go to the greengrocer as a separate trip.
I get it. We can’t buy houses, we can’t afford groceries.
Admittedly my parents couldn’t afford a house and we often had to skip on groceries too.
But as a kid of the 80s, the thing that gets me is how these memes seem to ignore inflation entirely.
Yes those numbers are lower but so were wages.
And of course we can can talk about real terms wage stagnation, but poverty is timeless and the 80s were an awful and unaffordable time for a lot of people.
But yeah. Sure.
Things are so much more COMPLEX than they used to be - on purpose ofc, b/c people made money from exploiting that increase in complexity.
e.g. American schools used to be tops in the world for things like STEM + others. Now… not so much.
Healthcare too. Now… not so much.
Life expectancy / standard of living, it’s all relevant.
And we don’t even know: is this a temporary downswing, which will eventually right itself? It doesn’t look like it, when up against the forces of globalization, automation, and fascism - it looks rather like now is as good as it is ever going to get, and things like Social Security, Medicare/-aid will just not be available for the people who are currently paying into it. But, back then they did not know how quickly things would get better either, and yet they did so…
On the other hand, decades went by where the gap b/t a living wage vs. what people were paid got ever wider. DECADES of that practice put us into this situation, and it won’t take mere days, weeks, months, or even years to get out of it. Robert Reich’s Inequality for All (completely free to watch on YouTube etc.) explains the 3 reasons people did not notice it happening back then: as costs went up, (a) additional people went to work (it used to be just one person, then it became two), (b) people worked for longer hours (not just 30-40 hrs/week, but 60+ these days), and © people borrowed against the past successes, with e.g. mortgages to put their kids through college and prop up the standard of living that they were accustomed to.
So, yeah, poverty itself was probably far worse back then, whereas hopelessness seems worse today, and it seems not entirely due to media clickbait exploitation of people’s fears. But also, things have shifted such that poverty WILL BE worse in the future: e.g. if young people today cannot afford college, and the minimum wage is not a livable one, then not only will they never own a home, but there is a real, actual potential that they will find themselves homeless. As is happening right now all across the country in fact… Maybe that will be turned around, but like… how?
Indeed, the age-old dance, but always, always with a new form (except there is nothing truly new under the sun).
1980 was not prosperous times. I remember us using food stamps. My dad was working in a hospital kitchen and stole food from work to feed us. Inflation was crazy, gas went up to about $1.80 (in 1980 dollars) and the Reagan era mass unemployment of 1982 was just around the corner. Jimmy Carter famously told the nation to wear a sweater in winter when people couldn’t afford heating.
Our family of four lived in a small two bedroom duplex in 1980.
I do have fond memories from back then, but it had nothing to do with prosperity. It was that I was always over at Grandma’s house and Grandma was a god damned saint who walked among us.
Go ahead and downvote and deny the realities of a time you probably weren’t even alive.
I’m so glad we moved past Suzy-Qs.
Spent $350 on a single cart of groceries today, nearly lost my mind at how bad it’s gotten.
Millennials look at the 80s like how boomers look at the 50s
A small $25,000 house with a 13% mortgage rate. Driving there in her family car (one car shared by the whole family) that get 9 gpm and turns into a pile of rust by the time it gets to 80,000 miles. Oh and unemployment was 7.5% and minimum wage was $3.10 if you could even find a job
You need to do some math here because I think you’re trying to put out a “gotcha” moment but the math stills sucks. Last I checked minimum wage is what, $7.50 or something in the US? So even at. $3.10 an hour minimum wage, that $25,000 house would have been a fucking steal, even at 13% interest rate, hell make it 20% if you want. Cars were cheaper then too.
Not trying to pull a gotcha just pointing out there’s a lot of apples and oranges at play here. If you think life was a breeze back then you’re sadly mistaken.
the easiest part of living back then is i didn’t have to do it
Relatively, it fucking was a breeze in terms of cost of living. Of course there were social, technological and other issues, no one disputes that.
My family sat around and stripped copper to make ends meet
Homie you are missing the point, no one is saying people didn’t have problems, what they are saying is in Relative AND absolute terms to now, things are both more expensive and people earn less.
We can look at statistics to prove this. Anecdotal evidence exists, but it doesn’t prove anything.
If you look at my original post I provided actual facts that I double checked before posting not anecdotal information. People downvote but haven’t tried to refute. They look for validation not information on the internet. There are good jobs out there now needing to be filled. Trust me the 70’s thru the 80’s were hard times, I lived through them.
My family only has one car to share now…
… I have a scooter.
Sick can I ride it some time?
Mine too but most don’t
Never heard of inflation, huh. Our education system is failing.
Inflation is literally the point of the meme. If you didn’t realize that, then you’re proving your second sentence to be true.
The meme is not saying anything of any substance. It’s not showing anything about the cost of living, income, or anything actually interesting. It’s just “hur due, inflation. Bygone era, hur dur.”
Maybe because it’s a meme.
It’s a really dumb meme.
I think you’re in the wrong place if you’re wanting a long-form commentary on American economics. This is, and I can’t stress this enough, a place for memes.
Your mom is a meme.
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.
Remember when lunch was a dime and we made 5¢ an hour? Hur dur.
Any website that would have more of these type of retro pictures? Love that shit, looking how life was before my time.
