I went to try to see conclusively if you were correct. A pretty basic sofa at C&B is $1,800 - $2,000. In 1990 you could buy a basic Bassett sofa at J.C. Penney

I went to try to see conclusively if you were correct. A pretty basic sofa at C&B is $1,800 - $2,000. In 1990 you could buy a basic Bassett sofa at J.C. Penney for $599 [1] -- $1407 in 2023 dollars. Furniture from Sears and Penney's (regardless of whether it was fashionable) was of fine quality, in that it held up for decades. I know because we had furniture like this in our home at the time. So this tells me that the price for a sofa (that is made domestically and not slapped together from particle board, a half inch of foam, and about 4 springs) has gone up by 25-30%. And I think you're saying that therefore, this isn't an utterly crazy price hike. I'd agree it's modest. Thing is, I think what's changed is demographics. In 1990, a LOT of people bought furniture at a department store or furniture store. They could afford it, but also here's the interesting part: It was much more rare then to find a $250 sofa. If that was your budget, you just bought a used good sofa and you probably got a better product. When super cheap everything appeared in the late 90s, it drove out the good manufactured goods, and many of the stores that sold those good items. People felt like buying the quality of things they used to buy would be extravagant, since they could buy an IKEA or Walmart version for less than half, and also, many families started to be worse off financially than their parents' generation had been, adding to their feelings of frugality. Unfortunately, this crap is so shoddy in most cases that it's actually more expensive when you factor in its lifetime. [1] https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1990-JCPenney-Fall-Winter-Catalog/1054 https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1990-JCP... * Some present-day comparisons: - https://www.jcpenney.com/p/signature-design-by-ashley-camila-sofa/ppr5007255040?pTmplType=regular&deptId=dept20000011&catId=cat1002460008 https://www.jcpenney.com/p/signature-design-by-ashley-camila... - https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/paerup-sofa-gunnared-beige-s29389463/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/paerup-sofa-gunnared-beige-s293...