4 ms·

Well $20/hr: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES3000000008 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES3000000008 Jan 1980: $6.82/hr, adjusted for inflation is $2

• mirimir 10y ago
  Standard inflation rates exclude too many things to be reliable. And the basket has changed, over time. I suspect that's why parent said $20-$60 per hour.
• Spooky23 10y ago
  Those comparisons are tricky, especially in hot markets. My childhood home in NYC was $30k in 1980. My grandparents lived in a nicer house up the block on a sanitation workers salary. That home sold a year ago for $1.2M. The 2016 version of my parents or grandparents would be living in some distant suburb.
  • rgbrenner 10y ago
    Ok.. but this is an article about manufacturing. So which manufacturing town in the US is a hot market? They don't call it the rust belt for nothing. Edit: Average home price in Detroit: $38k
    • Spooky23 10y ago
      The rust belt are the places that lacked diversification. There are lots and lots of little rust belts that were overshadowed. For example, New York City. NYC had 875k manufacturing jobs in the mid 60s, which plummeted 60% by 1993. The same thing happened for complimentary industries like wholesaling. Info: https://www.bls.gov/mlr/1993/02/art4full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/mlr/1993/02/art4full.pdf Those cool hipster spaces in Brooklyn, etc are there because hundreds of people were working there until the 80s.