Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[kenberg]

I hope you will excuse my persistence but I find this substantial increase (after the adjustment for inflation) in family income to be interesting, and as we climb out of covid and begin programs intended to help others, I think it could be useful as well as interesting.

So I am going to try an approach, perhaps an odd approach, to understanding.

Growing up, I had food and housing, and every expectation that I would continue to have food and housing. The neighborhood was safe. I had a bicycle, ice skakes, a sled. There was a decent elementary school walking distance away. I went to the movies and I bought books. You get the idea.

 

Suppose we were to set that as a goal. What family income is needed today for the kids to have such a life?

 

Perhaps I should indicate upper bounds on what we had. When we went fishing we rented a small boat and powered it with a three and a half horsepower outboard motor. I learned about water skiing, and for that matter snow skiing, in college. These were not part of family life as I grew up. But I would consider it a success if the worst a kid could say about his life is that he never learned to water ski.

 

I realize this is personal, and I have noted comments about that. But if we want to make life better for others, it seems we should have some idea of what we would like to achieve.

 

Of course, it is more expensive to live in San Francisco than in Omaha. Maybe take a non-extreme case such as St. Paul. The last time I looked on Zillow, the house I grew up in has a z value of about 350K. Randolph Heights Elementary is still there, as is Edgecumbe playground. So what sort of family income would be required to live there? Or somewhere like it.

A clear answer to this seems far more useful than graphs.

[mycroft]

There are things that have gone up much faster than inflation in the United States:

• University education
  
• Housing
  
• Health Insurance

At random, just off the top of my head. Conclusions from this are left as an exercise to the reader (including the chance of achieving median family income with insecurity in any of those things).

 

I would also suggest that median income undifferentiated by location, especially in a United States that includes San Fransicso, metropolitan New York and D.C., and Detroit or Minot N.D., is not helpful in understanding "indexed by inflation" costs. You mention this, of course.

 

What you're looking for (besides that) is income frequency charts; it would not surprise me if there was a bell curve that includes the median on the upswing, dying off pretty quickly around $60K, with a big spike at "minimum wage family" levels. Even a "25%/50%/75%" graph would help with this.

 

The key to this graph is to see that out of the excess of what is being produced, about half of what would be expected in 1953 has gone to the producers, and the other half (in addition to the 1953 owner's expected increase, not instead of) to the owners. It doesn't help necessarily with understand how or why this is less livable than before. If it was used to make that point, it probably was the wrong graph to use.

 

As a final point, it would be taken for granted that in 1953, there was a "decent [] school" for you, as long as you were white [and urban, I guess]. That was never true for other communities, and it's no longer necessarily true for anyone. The money the government spent on that? Didn't go back to the "median income" folks, or the 30percentile folks. No idea where it went[/s].

 

[Edit: It looks like I missed stating my basic point. It's not surprising that a family in the U.S. making the median income can have a comfortable life (barring a health emergency that racks up $1M before blinking, I guess), ignoring those insane CoL places. Is it a sign of a happy society that "more than 50% of U.S. families aren't struggling"? Should that be closer to 90%? 99%?]

[Winstonm]

 

 

Did something happen in 1980? Perhaps our friend from Oklahoma has a theory?

 

 

 

Ayn Rand was elected president?

[kenberg]

There are things that have gone up much faster than inflation in the United States:

• University education
• Housing
• Health Insurance

At random, just off the top of my head. Conclusions from this are left as an exercise to the reader (including the chance of achieving median family income with insecurity in any of those things).

 

I would also suggest that median income undifferentiated by location, especially in a United States that includes San Fransicso, metropolitan New York and D.C., and Detroit or Minot N.D., is not helpful in understanding "indexed by inflation" costs. You mention this, of course.

 

What you're looking for (besides that) is income frequency charts; it would not surprise me if there was a bell curve that includes the median on the upswing, dying off pretty quickly around $60K, with a big spike at "minimum wage family" levels. Even a "25%/50%/75%" graph would help with this.

 

The key to this graph is to see that out of the excess of what is being produced, about half of what would be expected in 1953 has gone to the producers, and the other half (in addition to the 1953 owner's expected increase, not instead of) to the owners. It doesn't help necessarily with understand how or why this is less livable than before. If it was used to make that point, it probably was the wrong graph to use.

 

As a final point, it would be taken for granted that in 1953, there was a "decent [] school" for you, as long as you were white. That was never true for other communities, and it's no longer necessarily true for anyone. The money the government spent on that? Didn't go back to the "median income" folks, or the 30percentile folks. No idea where it went[/s].

 

[Edit: It looks like I missed stating my basic point. It's not surprising that a family in the U.S. making the median income can have a comfortable life (barring a health emergency that racks up $1M before blinking, I guess), ignoring those insane CoL places. Is it a sign of a happy society that "more than 50% of U.S. families aren't struggling"? Should that be closer to 90%? 99%?]

 

You are focusing on things that I think are important. One way to put it: How much money is needed to do what?

 

Univ education. I started at the University of Minnesota in 1956. Tuition was $72 a quarter, so $216 a year. Around 1956 it went up to, I believe, $84 a quarter, so $252 a year. Minimum wage was $1.00 an hour but it was easy to get even part time jobs for more than that. So pretty manageable for many. What happened? Well, back then it was common for profs to teach four three hour courses. Now two three hour course, or even one three hour course for someone with a highly active research program, is common. And, of course, there are many more students. This creates a push on the budget. A solvable problemm? Perhaps, but it's a problem.

 

Expectation that a nearby elementary school is 'decent": Well, maybe sort of still true. Mostly I think the range of quality has drastically changed. A grandson went to a good high school (and a good middle school and a good elementary school but I don't recall that so well). Like many, he took AP this and Ap that. My trig teacher in my senior year was fine, I thought highly of him, but I seriously doubt he would have scored well on an AP Calculus exam. By the time I was a high school senior most of my friends went to a different and better public high school than I was attending, but the difference was not large. They were not taking calculus, their physics course seemed to be much like mine and so on. And the few kids I knew from private schools did not seem to be in a different league either. Now the very good schools are very very good and the bad ones are horrid (to borrow from a nursery rhyme). I think the range is less dramatic at the elementary school level.

But what do we need to do? I doubt the answer is easy.

[Winstonm]

Something that seems undiscussed is the effect of the rather recent disparity in the sharing of the benefits of productivity gains. In the past there was a more equitable sharing but in today’s stock price driven world hoarding of those gains has become the norm.

[y66]

Stars are aligning to rebuild the IRS & address tax gap. Here’s our take on need for multi-year discretionary cap adjustment, & a multiyear mandatory funding stream to help pay for recovery legislation– to be combined with increased reporting requirements.

 

Rebuilding IRS Would Reduce Tax Gap, Help Replenish Depleted Revenue Base

 

[kenberg]

I think the weakening of the IRS has been a disaster. I hope it gets fixed.

 

As I have said boringly often, I don't fret about other people having more money than I do. And I expect to be taxed, someone has to pay for what we want done. however the rich are undertaxed to start with, and they have ways to get around taxes by clever legal maneuvers. If it also becomes the case that they regualrly dodge taxes illegally with little fear of being caught, this will be very bad for how I and many others see our government.

 

Of course I know people often read tax rules imaginatively and sometimes get away with it. I don't demand perfection. But I am getting the idea that holding millionaires to the tax laws today is like it was holding speakeasies to the liquor laws in the 20s. This is not good.

 

Added: Sure, I realize "millionaire" does not mean what it meant in the time of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I am using it to mean those with ridiculous wealth.

[barmar]

Ken, as long as you keep trying to relate things to the life you led growing up, I don't think you'll ever "get it".

 

You were a white boy growing up in the rural midwest. I grew up in suburban Long Island a generation later, with middle class parents (my father ran the medium-sized family business that my grandfather started). We had decent school systems, which prepared us to go to college and become whatever we wanted, and we had little trouble paying for it (my parents paid for almost all my college expenses, the only debt I took on was the $7500 Guaranteed Student Loan that was available to everyone at the time).

 

The only people who had better prospects than us were children of parents who were already filthy rich. White girls who wanted to become wives and mothers also had it good; but if they wanted careers, they were mostly SOL unless they were interested in a few specific jobs (teacher, nurse); there were also some jobs like secretaries and sales clerk that were usually just temporary until they found a husband, not long-term careers.

 

But this is not the life that many Americans live these days. Income hasn't kept pace with the increases in costs of college and health care. There are far more single-parent families, and two-parent families often require both parents to work to afford a decent lifestyle. There are far more people below the poverty line; getting out of it is difficult, and even harder if you're a minority. Income inequality is orders of magnitude worse now than it was when you were growing up, and the rich have the means to keep it that way unless drastic changes are made by the government (which is unlikely because the GOP is firmly in the pocket of big business, and even Democrats need corporate donations).

 

Your folksy anecdotes about your life are fun reads, but they offer little in the way of ideas about how to solve the problems that all these people have. They mostly just highlight how different things are now.

[mycroft]

Yes, that's one thing I missed when discussing "living with median family income, 1960 vs 2020" (1990, really). Child care has gone up much more than inflation, because for many (including "most" median income families), child care cost "$0" - the wife stayed at home and was child care and maid and cook.

 

Median family income was 90% one-income; it's now maybe 15%.

 

I was an outlier (for white urban children) in the 1970s being from a two-full-time-income household; I remained an outlier in the 1980s when I now came from a one-income (but also one-parent) household. Both of those things are much more common now.

 

(no comment about the number of two-parent families that would have been one-parent households if a certain parent had a full-time job and *could* leave. That is, I'm told, a significant factor.)

[kenberg]

Ken, as long as you keep trying to relate things to the life you led growing up, I don't think you'll ever "get it".

 

You were a white boy growing up in the rural midwest. I grew up in suburban Long Island a generation later, with middle class parents (my father ran the medium-sized family business that my grandfather started). We had decent school systems, which prepared us to go to college and become whatever we wanted, and we had little trouble paying for it (my parents paid for almost all my college expenses, the only debt I took on was the $7500 Guaranteed Student Loan that was available to everyone at the time).

 

The only people who had better prospects than us were children of parents who were already filthy rich. White girls who wanted to become wives and mothers also had it good; but if they wanted careers, they were mostly SOL unless they were interested in a few specific jobs (teacher, nurse); there were also some jobs like secretaries and sales clerk that were usually just temporary until they found a husband, not long-term careers.

 

But this is not the life that many Americans live these days. Income hasn't kept pace with the increases in costs of college and health care. There are far more single-parent families, and two-parent families often require both parents to work to afford a decent lifestyle. There are far more people below the poverty line; getting out of it is difficult, and even harder if you're a minority. Income inequality is orders of magnitude worse now than it was when you were growing up, and the rich have the means to keep it that way unless drastic changes are made by the government (which is unlikely because the GOP is firmly in the pocket of big business, and even Democrats need corporate donations).

 

Your folksy anecdotes about your life are fun reads, but they offer little in the way of ideas about how to solve the problems that all these people have. They mostly just highlight how different things are now.

 

But I have asked a clear question. What family income would be required for a child to grow up as I did? Btw, I don't think of St.\Paul as rural. But I picked St. Paul because (1) I know it and (2) it's probably somewhere in the middle for costs. As I mentioned, the z value of the house I grew up in 70 years ago is something like 350K.

 

My idea is this: If we want to accomplish something, we should be clear on what we are hoping for and have some idea of what it would cost.

 

Let me be very specific: Suppose a married couple have one kid and a family income of 80K. Suppose they plan to live in St. Paul. Is it reasonable to think that the kid could grow up being comfortable about the basics (housing, food, clothing), get a decent start in life from the school system, have a bike, but nooks, go to moviesd? Is 60K enough? Not enough? Easily more than enough?

 

If we hope to make a life better, I ask for some details of what we hope for and what sort of family income would suffice to bring it about.

[pilowsky]

But I have asked a clear question. What family income would be required for a child to grow up as I did? Btw, I don't think of St.\Paul as rural. But I picked St. Paul because (1) I know it and (2) it's probably somewhere in the middle for costs. As I mentioned, the z value of the house I grew up in 70 years ago is something like 350K.

 

My idea is this: If we want to accomplish something, we should be clear on what we are hoping for and have some idea of what it would cost.

 

Let me be very specific: Suppose a married couple have one kid and a family income of 80K. Suppose they plan to live in St. Paul. Is it reasonable to think that the kid could grow up being comfortable about the basics (housing, food, clothing), get a decent start in life from the school system, have a bike, but nooks, go to moviesd? Is 60K enough? Not enough? Easily more than enough?

 

If we hope to make a life better, I ask for some details of what we hope for and what sort of family income would suffice to bring it about.

 

The answer Ken, is that you are asking the wrong question.

Your "clear" question: "What family income would be required for a child to grow up as I did?" suggests that your life is the optimal life and that if other people had a particular "family income", they could replicate it and all would be well with the world.

The clear implication is that if we could add 'Income=X' to 'Child=Y', then 'Happy life = Z'.

It's a wonderful equation. Mr Smith should take it to Washington.

Tragically, your relationship is not a physical law. Merely a correlation that worked out well in your case.

Nothing that happened to you in your life had very much to do with your family income.

Ask Bill Clinton or Lyle and Erik Menendez.

A "Happy Life" does not come out of a wallet.

[Winstonm]

I think Ken asked a valid economic question; however, I don’t think it went far enough. Once “x” is determined, the question is how likely someone is to be able to earn that figure if white compared to black and Hispanic and Asian

[pilowsky]

I think Ken asked a valid economic question; however, I don't think it went far enough. Once "x" is determined, the question is how likely someone is to be able to earn that figure if white compared to black and Hispanic and Asian

 

Once again, I don't think that there is much of a relationship between [(ethnicity, gender or anything else) X (money)] and happiness.

 

What you are alluding to is a different question.

 

In medicine, for decades (centuries), there was a problem that goes by the fancy name "homosocialization". This term has appropriated by Wikipedia writers to mean the "process by which LGBT people meet...".

 

What the term was originally used to describe was the process by which people maintained their own community to the exclusion of others.

In medicine, this meant that unless you were a white Anglo-Saxon male, it was tough to get into medicine.

 

So bad was the situation that the London School of Medicine was founded.

 

The problem was that Medicine (like the Priesthood) was a secure, well-paying, highly respected sinecure. Nice work if you can get it.

It's different in some countries. Medicine in the Soviet Union sucked if you wanted wealth and status, so women were common - except in Senior posts, of course.

If you read Mikhail Bulgakov's book "A Country Doctor's Notebook", you'll find out why.

Instead of enjoying the opportunity of walking along the beach and meeting charming villagers in Port Wenn (Doc Martin).

You had the opportunity to be eaten by wolves and nearly freeze to death (they made a TV series about it starring Harry Potter).

 

(You are interpreting) Ken's question is relevant to the way that the "have's" prevent the "have nots" from getting their fair share - or as David Gilmour wrote (in distinctively 7/4 time):

 

Money, get away

You get a good job with more pay and you're okay

Money, it's a gas

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash

New car, caviar, four-star daydream

Think I'll buy me a football team

 

Money, get back

I'm alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack

Money, it's a hit

Ah, don't give me that do-goody-good bullshit

I'm in the high-fidelity first class travelling set

And I think I need a Lear jet

 

 

If that's what is being discussed, I'm right there with you.

 

 

 

 

[Winstonm]

I interpreted Ken's expression "how I did" to mean with quantifiable objects of x, y, z rather than a question of happiness.

[Winstonm]

I've always hoped that police were honest but have always had a nagging concern that two officers operating in tandem could lie and send me to prison. That makes this article even more troubling to me.

 

Combine that with this and it is spooky.

[pilowsky]

I've always hoped that police were honest but have always had a nagging concern that two officers operating in tandem could lie and send me to prison. That makes this article even more troubling to me.

 

Combine that with this and it is spooky.

 

You're joking. That's really what you thought!

Watch this video http://bit.ly/DuaneDontTalk

 

I also bought his book.

I live in Australia. The situation is much worse according to lawyers I have chatted to.

[Winstonm]

My oldest daughter is an attorney so I have been indoctrinated to seek legal counsel any time the constabulary wants answers.

[kenberg]

The answer Ken, is that you are asking the wrong question.

Your "clear" question: "What family income would be required for a child to grow up as I did?" suggests that your life is the optimal life and that if other people had a particular "family income", they could replicate it and all would be well with the world.

 

The clear implication is that if we could add 'Income=X' to 'Child=Y', then 'Happy life = Z'.

 

It's a wonderful equation. Mr Smith should take it to Washington.

 

Tragically, your relationship is not a physical law. Merely a correlation that worked out well in your case.

Nothing that happened to you in your life had very much to do with your family income.

Ask Bill Clinton or Lyle and Erik Menendez.

 

A "Happy Life" does not come out of a wallet.

 

This and comments by others have led me to re-think my formulation. Y had suggested an article, I read it and reproduced a graph (copied below), and commented on the numbers. See post 18070. So I'll try again, but without self-reference. Apparently, the 2019 (and thus pre-covid) median family income, adjusted for inflation, was about 150% higher than that of 1953 (so it was about two and a half times what it was in 1953). Ah, $35,650 in 1953 versus $86,011 in 2019 in adjusted dollars.

 

My reformulated question: What does this mean in practical terms for a kid growing up today? Which kid? Well, the graph is about median family income so let's think about a median kid. By this I mean a kid such that about half the kids in the country are growing up in a family with a greater family income, and so about half are growing up with less.

 

I deleted a fair amount of this, I need to understand the numbers better.

 

[awm]

Inflation is a complicated thing to measure, and I wouldn't necessarily take it at face value. Comparing now to 1953, a lot of things are relatively cheaper. For example, in 1953:

 

Less than half of homes had a TV.

Similar for a clothes washer, a dishwasher, or air conditioning.

In fact, only about 80% of homes had indoor plumbing!

Not a single home had a mobile phone or a microwave.

All of these things are very common and inexpensive in the US now (most families classed as "poor, but not homeless" have these things).

 

The cost of food and clothing has also gone down a lot relative to the average income.

 

So overall standard of living has gone up quite a bit! But at the same time there are certain things like housing costs, medical costs, and university costs that have risen much faster than overall inflation.

 

The "household income" number is also a bit misleading, because in 1953 there were many "two parent, one earner" households whereas this situation is relatively unusual today. Having both parents working full time can increase the "household income" a lot while also adding significant expenses for child care (that would not exist in families with a full-time stay-at-home parent and thus aren't captured by inflation).

[kenberg]

Right Adam, I agree.

Still, I am curious:

Suppose we take what I called the median kid. A kid such that half the kids in the country live in a family with greater family income, half with less. Then imagine a median kid in 1953. Of course it varies from kid to kid, but all in all, which kid, chosen randomly from among the median kids, would you rather be? Which kid has a better shot at a good life? With a substantial increase in median family income over the 66 years, you would think it would be the 2019 kid, a clear choice. But for some of the reasons you mention, I am not so sure.

We had tv, I watched the coronation in 1953. But eating fresh strawberries in the winter? Not possible. Oh, there I go again. But I still wonder: If I could start over as a medina child in 1953 or 1019, which would I choose? Not sure.

I find it an interesting question.

 

From what you are saying, maybe you find this uncertainty not totally nuts.

[Winstonm]

Right Adam, I agree.

Still, I am curious:

Suppose we take what I called the median kid. A kid such that half the kids in the country live in a family with greater family income, half with less. Then imagine a median kid in 1953. Of course it varies from kid to kid, but all in all, which kid, chosen randomly from among the median kids, would you rather be? Which kid has a better shot at a good life? With a substantial increase in median family income over the 66 years, you would think it would be the 2019 kid, a clear choice. But for some of the reasons you mention, I am not so sure.

We had tv, I watched the coronation in 1953. But eating fresh strawberries in the winter? Not possible. Oh, there I go again. But I still wonder: If I could start over as a medina child in 1953 or 1019, which would I choose? Not sure.

I find it an interesting question.

 

From what you are saying, maybe you find this uncertainty not totally nuts.

 

Ken, I'm not sure median income, no matter how measured, really matters. For example, say "x" is the median income and 150,000.000 are below that figure - the real issue is how much below and how many in say, groupings of $5000 increments. If in 1953 90% of those who were below were within 20% of the median and today only 20% are that close to the median, that is more important than the actual number to my way of thinking.

[kenberg]

Ken, I'm not sure median income, no matter how measured, really matters. For example, say "x" is the median income and 150,000.000 are below that figure - the real issue is how much below and how many in say, groupings of $5000 increments. If in 1953 90% of those who were below were within 20% of the median and today only 20% are that close to the median, that is more important than the actual number to my way of thinking.

 

Yes, I agree. but as I said to Adam, still I am interested: Suppose you could go back and become, say, a twelve-year-old kid. And you have a further choice. Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but my variant. You are given a choice. You can become some randomly selected median kid in 1953 or some randomly selected median kid in 2019. Let's suppose the pandemic doesn't exist, this is a fantasy so we can suppose what we like. Which do you choose? Is it obvious to you?

 

Mostly I just find it interesting. Does the typical kid have it easier or harder today than 66 years ago?

 

But I think there could be some worthy consequences from thinking this through. It would get at what we actually value.

 

Sure, I do think that being below median but not all that much below is an issue.

 

Perhaps no one has stated their choice because they think the question is really stupid. It's ok to say so. But perhaps there are others like me who are not so sure which way they would choose. It's whimsy. But whimsy has its uses. A friend of Becky said her husband has been reading books on time travel. Maybe I should ask him.

 

 

This fantasy has probably run its course, so I'll retire it.

[pilowsky]

Yes, I agree. but as I said to Adam, still I am interested: Suppose you could go back and become, say, a twelve-year-old kid. And you have a further choice. Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but my variant. You are given a choice. You can become some randomly selected median kid in 1953 or some randomly selected median kid in 2019. Let's suppose the pandemic doesn't exist, this is a fantasy so we can suppose what we like. Which do you choose? Is it obvious to you?

 

Mostly I just find it interesting. Does the typical kid have it easier or harder today than 66 years ago?

 

But I think there could be some worthy consequences from thinking this through. It would get at what we actually value.

 

Sure, I do think that being below median but not all that much below is an issue.

 

Perhaps no one has stated their choice because they think the question is really stupid. It's ok to say so. But perhaps there are others like me who are not so sure which way they would choose. It's whimsy. But whimsy has its uses. A friend of Becky said her husband has been reading books on time travel. Maybe I should ask him.

 

 

This fantasy has probably run its course, so I'll retire it.

To be fair though I am a big fan of Garrison Keilor so Minnesota murmurings are of interest and fun for me.

Regarding the data.

The figure of >$68,000 comes from the US census.

It is safe to say that anything that comes from a document produced during the Trump administration is, prima facie, false.

This one is no exception. Here is a link to income data from a more reliable source (by which I mean anything untainted by Trump) https://worldpopulat...ome-by-country.

Trump census data excludes vast tracts of the population in the USA that work, live and produce in the US economy.

[Winstonm]

Ken, I too think the question interesting and I have no answer but I don’t know what public schools are like or how hard it is to find work. I do think it is pretty obvious that in the 50’s there was less emphasis on great wealth and more concern for workers rights and futures

[awm]

Keep in mind that in 1953 we still had segregation in most of the country! The KKK was much stronger than today, you could be fired (or even lynched) for being gay, and women had a lot fewer rights in the workplace (and in marriage). Even asking Ken's question suggests a bit of white male privilege.

 

If we assume white/male/straight/Christian background, there are still a number of things that were worse in 1953. For example, you were fairly likely to be drafted to fight in a military conflict (Korea or Vietnam) which doesn't really happen today. While the existential threat of climate change was an unknown in the 1950s, you had the threat of nuclear war which might have been even scarier. The polio vaccine hadn't been developed quite yet and this was a pretty scary disease. Schools and teaching were more uniform but also less developed, so if you were the type of kid who has trouble sitting still and learning by taking notes from a lecture you were probably worse off in the 1950s.

 

Of course, if we're focusing solely on economic issues (for the presumed white/male/straight/Christian kid) things might've been better in the 1950s. Digging around the web, I found some numbers from a decade later in 1969:

 

For high school dropouts (finished 1-3 years of high school) the average salary in 1969 for men was $7,958; for high school graduates without college it was $9,100. After inflation this comes to $58,248 and $66,812. Some more modern data gives $520 and $712 as weekly incomes in 2017 (this translates to $29,203 and $39,986 yearly after inflation). This is a pretty massive difference (basically double for high school dropouts)! Of course the latter numbers are for everyone (not just men) and removing the lower salaries for women (yes we still have a gender gap today) will boost it a little, but nowhere near as high as 1969.

 

If you want the 1960s level of income, you basically need a wife who works full-time too or you need to get a college degree. Of course this is just the median (some people drop out of school and start their own software company and make billions!) but this is behind the modern drive to get a college degree. The problem is that the cost of college has become quite high currently reaching $35,720 per student per year. Of course some schools are cheaper than others (public in-state costs are only around $25,615 per year) but it's easy to see how people come out with $50,000 in debt even assuming they work part-time during school and/or get some help from parents or scholarships. With a bachelor's degree the average earnings look similar to the 1969 earnings above ($1,173 weekly comes to $65,876 per year after inflation and again it's a bit more for men because of the persistent gender gap).

 

So the basic story is that college grad income today looks like high school grad income in the 1960s and that college comes with a lot of debt that takes time to pay off on the typical income. So Ken's typical white/male/straight/Christian kid was better off economically years ago.