When I started washing dishes, minimum wage was $1.50. Hard to get used to inflation of 1000%.
Health spending was $355 per person in 1970 ($1,797 if you adjust to 2017 dollars). In 2017 it was $10,735.
The median price of a home in 1970 was $23,600, and last april it was $339,000.
We have less than half the number of pensions in the US than we did then. Contributions to retirement plans have grown by more than 10x and we have a lot less financial security now despite this.
1,000% is a fantasy. We're well above that on many aspects.
I think that's a common problem when discussing things with one's parents. "You make twice the amount I did at that age!", "Yes, but tuition is twenty times as high!".
- An hour of labor would buy ~4.7 gallons of gasoline. If minimum wage had kept pace, it would be $12.32.
- Average home could be bought with ~15k hours of minimum-wage labor (around 8 years). Had minimum wage kept pace, it would be $14.96.
- Average car price was $2,822. Using this as the sole deflator would put an equivalent minimum wage at $20.89 today.
- The average public university tuition + room & board cost $1,143, which could be earned in 714 hours at minimum wage (this could be physically accomplished in a summer of hard work). If minimum wage had kept pace with these fees, it would be $27.28 per hour. (There are not enough clock hours in a summer break, assuming no sleep, to earn enough at minimum wage to pay for a year of the average public university.)