In 1952, the minimum wage was $0.75 per hour (equivalent to $6.39 in today's dollars), and a full-time summer job at 40 hours per week for 12 weeks would have generated $360 in total summer earnings (ignoring taxes). Using retail prices from a 1952 Sears Christmas Catalog, I found that a teenager then would have only been able to purchase the following 3 items with his or her entire pre-tax summer earnings of $360
lol Except the 1952 teenager had a job and the 2011 kid doesn't.
But back on topic, this is one reason I think poverty numbers are overstated. The poor have it much better than the poor in the 50's. The social net is fraying right now, but still much better than it used to be. Some states even provide free cell phones for the poor.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
I look back at the best time in my life was back in the late 1940s to around 1960. We did not have much money as compaired to today, but prices were on par with that. Good music, no drugs that I knew of and wages of $1.00 per hour working for the phone company.
I would not want to be one of this younger generation. Too many pressures.
