We Are Poorer than we were 100 Years Ago

[Campbell]

Now you're going a bit too far. Life was tough for workers in 1905.



America at Work / America at Leisure, 1894-1915

Those big houses you passed? Most workers couldn't afford those, they were owned by people who were themselves small business owners and other "middle class" employed. The vast majority of working people lived in tenements, tents, or wherever they could afford to get out of the weather. Child labor laws didn't get any traction until 1929.

As for your original citation? It's a blog article and the writer admits he is estimating all of his "data" from a few examples of wage information.



That was the era of sweatshop labor, where all members of the family man, woman, and child had to work to make ends meet. As other members have stated they lived in a lower tech society, rife with ills and economic inequities. Things were cheaper, mainly because there wasn't much money to spend. Businesses had to compete for the few dollars (your article states a $700 a year annual income??) people had available. When your cited author says "people had" he meant SOME people had, not ALL people had access to the living conditions listed. Refrigerated their food? You mean in iceboxes with ice delivered by the iceman. Heated their homes? As likely to be fireplaces as water heat radiators.

The only thing you got right was taxes. They had more to spend from what little they had due to no income taxes. The government depended on tariffs, excise taxes, and some corporate taxes. The world was a lot smaller then too, meaning there were no jets, bombers, or missiles that could drop atomic weapons anywhere in the world. If you wanted to go to Europe you took a ship. I agree our government spends too much, and our money is practically worthless. But I don't think life back then was as good as you pretend it was, and you oversimplify the issues.

My maternal grandfather owned a 160 acre farm at the head of the Beech river in west Tennessee which was granted to his predecessors in the original grants. In the mid and late 30's he cleared about $300 a year and a third of that went to his sharecroppers. People today have about as much sense of reality as I have of quantum physics.

 

[phattonez]

View attachment 67153263

refrigerator in the beginning of the last century

View attachment 67153264

current fridge


In 1905, 180 people per 100,000 Americans died from Tuberculosis, in 1997 that had gone down to 0.7 per 100,000.
In 1905, 170 people per 100,000 Americans died from Influenza and pneumonia, in 1997 that had gone down to 33 per 100,000.

In 1905 you lived about 48.7 years as a white but as a black person that was 31.9 years, today that is quite a bit longer.

Fewer and fewer people were dying of those every year. Yet look at cancer and heart disease today. Those statistics seem to only ever be getting worse.

More people study in this day and age compared to 1905, almost nobody had a car, television, video recorder, etc. etc. etc. etc.

The people from this day and age save less but that is not because they are "poorer" but because they spend that money on things they could not spend it on in 1905 like cable television, airplane travel, holidays, televisions, audio-hardware, computers, internet, cars, cars and more cars, camper vans, dvd's, cd's, hard disk recorders, jewelry, 3d televisions, 3d blue ray players, laptops, smart phones, tablets, software, video game consoles, video games, board games, toys, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

You cannot compare the early 20th century to our century.

And everybody is in debt today and have no practical plan for retiring. It's not going to happen. We already see it with the 55-64 year olds. They're not retiring anymore, they can't afford it. The debt generation has to finally realize that it's not going to happen, not when half of their income goes to the government.

 

[phattonez]

Get in a time machine, go back to your good old days and see how long you'll stay there.

When you get back to the present, tell us what you think.

That's what I thought, you have none.

 

[phattonez]

That's easy.....the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. The Republican party headed us to a Lord/Serf society beginning with Reagan:

Garbage. Why would you look at marginal tax rates when you should be looking at effective tax rates?

 

[phattonez]

Now you're going a bit too far. Life was tough for workers in 1905.

America at Work / America at Leisure, 1894-1915

Those big houses you passed? Most workers couldn't afford those, they were owned by people who were themselves small business owners and other "middle class" employed. The vast majority of working people lived in tenements, tents, or wherever they could afford to get out of the weather. Child labor laws didn't get any traction until 1929.

As for your original citation? It's a blog article and the writer admits he is estimating all of his "data" from a few examples of wage information.

I"d like to see better arguments than stories that people make up. Where are the hard statistics? People saved money and earned decent interest back then. People don't even have disposable income today, much less any way to grow their wealth. Not when banks are offering <1% for your savings.

That was the era of sweatshop labor, where all members of the family man, woman, and child had to work to make ends meet. As other members have stated they lived in a lower tech society, rife with ills and economic inequities. Things were cheaper, mainly because there wasn't much money to spend. Businesses had to compete for the few dollars (your article states a $700 a year annual income??) people had available. When your cited author says "people had" he meant SOME people had, not ALL people had access to the living conditions listed. Refrigerated their food? You mean in iceboxes with ice delivered by the iceman. Heated their homes? As likely to be fireplaces as water heat radiators.

The only thing you got right was taxes. They had more to spend from what little they had due to no income taxes. The government depended on tariffs, excise taxes, and some corporate taxes. The world was a lot smaller then too, meaning there were no jets, bombers, or missiles that could drop atomic weapons anywhere in the world. If you wanted to go to Europe you took a ship. I agree our government spends too much, and our money is practically worthless. But I don't think life back then was as good as you pretend it was, and you oversimplify the issues.

Funny that as terrible as this era was, it was the era where the US went from nothing to being the economic powerhouse of the world. Hmm, funny how the opposite is happening today when things are apparently soooooo much better.

 

[thinkforyoursel]

The irony here is ....the right wing have only themselves to blame.
because guess what ...republican politicians for all the sound bites you hear ...love taxing people just like democrats!!
And this is especially glaring at the state and local level where there are only republicans! It's simple ...if the politicians don't take your taxes ...they don't survive.

Finally ....Obama didn't invent Taxes or the tax system. In fact for all in this forum Obama has nothing to the tax system since he took office that would affect you!

In addition ....the biggest pot wall street and the banks has had for the last several decades to get money from ....is through the tax system! And you fools on the right ....are not only silent on this issue....you literally go out there and fight for the status quo.

And you're so well trained ...you fight to protect the banks, wall street and the military complex ....for free!!

So I know it sound nice to conjure up stories about this evil foreign black president who suddenly brought the tax system to America .....but that's only your imagination speaking!

 

[phattonez]

The irony here is ....the right wing have only themselves to blame.
because guess what ...republican politicians for all the sound bites you hear ...love taxing people just like democrats!!
And this is especially glaring at the state and local level where there are only republicans! It's simple ...if the politicians don't take your taxes ...they don't survive.

Finally ....Obama didn't invent Taxes or the tax system. In fact for all in this forum Obama has nothing to the tax system since he took office that would affect you!

In addition ....the biggest pot wall street and the banks has had for the last several decades to get money from ....is through the tax system! And you fools on the right ....are not only silent on this issue....you literally go out there and fight for the status quo.

And you're so well trained ...you fight to protect the banks, wall street and the military complex ....for free!!

So I know it sound nice to conjure up stories about this evil foreign black president who suddenly brought the tax system to America .....but that's only your imagination speaking!

Lol at the guy who read only the first line of the OP.

 

[specklebang]

Funny that as terrible as this era was, it was the era where the US went from nothing to being the economic powerhouse of the world. Hmm, funny how the opposite is happening today when things are apparently soooooo much better.

I don't see how any comparison can be made between the 2 eras.

A long distance call, something not easily afforded, was part of your Holiday celebration. Today, you can't survive without an Iphone5. Soi, who was better off? The joyous family that called Grandma or your ability to text somebody in Nigeria instantly?

A lot of that working man prosperity came from ----- Unions. Plus Corporations that actually gave a ****. Plus a total lack of competition. Plus a middle class that made their money from those sweatshops.

The thing that damaged us the most was the advent of TV. Now, people arew programmed through incessant advertising and promotion to buy more crap than they even have time to enjoy.

The US is still the largest economy in the world. Still the envy of the world. Still the entertainers of the world. Still the only super-power in the world.

 

[phattonez]

I don't see how any comparison can be made between the 2 eras.

A long distance call, something not easily afforded, was part of your Holiday celebration. Today, you can't survive without an Iphone5. Soi, who was better off? The joyous family that called Grandma or your ability to text somebody in Nigeria instantly?

A lot of that working man prosperity came from ----- Unions. Plus Corporations that actually gave a ****. Plus a total lack of competition. Plus a middle class that made their money from those sweatshops.

The thing that damaged us the most was the advent of TV. Now, people arew programmed through incessant advertising and promotion to buy more crap than they even have time to enjoy.

The US is still the largest economy in the world. Still the envy of the world. Still the entertainers of the world. Still the only super-power in the world.

Yes, people spend more money today on things that they can't afford. Therefore they're better off?

You know what might factor into why people spend so much and save so little? The fact that the interest rate that they get from banks is nil, and safe growth opportunities are basically non-existent.

 

[Van Basten]

Life is a hella lot better than it was 100 years ago, especially for people aren't straight, white men. Standard of living is much higher and the modern conveniences dwarf whatever you're trying to prove.

 

[phattonez]

Life is a hella lot better than it was 100 years ago, especially for people aren't straight, white men. Standard of living is much higher and the modern conveniences dwarf whatever you're trying to prove.

Someone who read the title and nothing else. Good for you.

 

[poweRob]

Thanks Obama!

Actually, while I'm at it, thanks Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover.

I could keep going, but these ones are all terrible. And most of all, thanks Wilson for giving us the income tax and central bank, you really screwed over this country royally with these.

Now for the proof:

"The next time you drive through an old part of town and see the grand old houses, remember that people were able to build and buy them because their paychecks weren’t stripped bare. There were no income taxes in 1905, no sales taxes, no state taxes, and not much in the way of property taxes.

There was also no such thing as a military-industrial complex in those days, and – miracle of miracles – the rest of the world survived!"

Money Issues in the US: Why Can't We Party Like It's 1905?

That clip of the article you have in your post doesn't seem to put forth a strong argument. It doesn't take into account a whole host of things like quality of life and housing codes so that you don't die from various things like fire due to bad building, asbestos inhalation or the fact that some of those taxes he's railing against and such built the roads we drive on.

It's a good point that money is being mispent in various ways like the MIC but saying life was better in 1913 than it is now... that's beyond apples and oranges IMO.


*edit...

As far as an existence of an MIC back then, Smedley Butler had something to say about that in his book "War is a Racket".

 

[phattonez]

That clip of the article you have in your post doesn't seem to put forth a strong argument. It doesn't take into account a whole host of things like quality of life and housing codes so that you don't die from various things like fire due to bad building, asbestos inhalation or the fact that some of those taxes he's railing against and such built the roads we drive on.

I'm pretty sure that showing half of income being leftover to today having no income leftover proves that quality of life is better now. Saving money is better than having no money to save, correct?

It's a good point that money is being mispent in various ways like the MIC but saying life was better in 1913 than it is now... that's beyond apples and oranges IMO.

I'm sure people would love to have half of their income back and most wouldn't lose much if government didn't spend half of their money.

 

[poweRob]

I'm pretty sure that showing half of income being leftover to today having no income leftover proves that quality of life is better now. Saving money is better than having no money to save, correct?



I'm sure people would love to have half of their income back and most wouldn't lose much if government didn't spend half of their money.

I edited my post. Worth a look see.

Also, you and the writer seem to be coming from the angle that the government hasn't done anything worth keeping or having been done.

 

[phattonez]

Also, you and the writer seem to be coming from the angle that the government hasn't done anything worth keeping or having been done.

So what? Am I not allowed to have an opinion?

 

[poweRob]

So what? Am I not allowed to have an opinion?

I'm not looking for a fight here. Just to find out if that is true. Apparently it is. No need to be defensive about it. It's just where you and I disagree.

Being that you are coming from that angle I think you are taking for granted that your reader would also agree that "government = bad" so convincing them of your point will take more than just thinking they already believe that.

 

[jamesrage]

Most of those things probably would be cheaper, and schooling was far greater in the past.

They were not cheaper.


The Inflation Calculator


Electrical goods and appliances in the 1920s prices examples from The People History Site
About the USA

You tell me. Do you think you could afford a grand Victorian house today? Yet, strangely enough, many regular people in the past could afford that. Odd how that works.

I am pretty sure a Victorian home did not have many of the things a modern home has now. Central heating and air, insulation, massive wiring and lighting, indoor plumbing except for maybe the wealthy living in cites, asphalt shingles

 

[poweRob]

They were not cheaper.


The Inflation Calculator


Electrical goods and appliances in the 1920s prices examples from The People History Site
About the USA





I am pretty sure a Victorian home did not have many of the things a modern home has now. Central heating and air, insulation, massive wiring and lighting, indoor plumbing except for maybe the wealthy living in cites, asphalt shingles

It's very difficult for me to believe the whole "life was better back when..." argument. Most times I hear that is from older people thinking about their youth.

 

[Peter King]

Fewer and fewer people were dying of those every year. Yet look at cancer and heart disease today. Those statistics seem to only ever be getting worse.

Well, that will most likely be because we live a good 30 years longer in this day and age. In the past most diseases would have killed as long before things like cancer would have killed us.

And the growth in heart disease? With the lengthening of life, the American public has grown increasingly fat, making the odds of dying from heart disease a lot higher than before. Plus with stress, unhealthy habits, unhealthy air, pollution etc. will not help in that aspect.

And everybody is in debt today and have no practical plan for retiring. It's not going to happen. We already see it with the 55-64 year olds. They're not retiring anymore, they can't afford it. The debt generation has to finally realize that it's not going to happen, not when half of their income goes to the government.[/QUOTE]

Greed has run rampant all around the world in the past decades, people have been advised and lured into unwise buying practices and that has lead to their lack of planning capability.



In the Netherlands every man and woman will have a retirement pension because everybody who earns or receives money as wage or social security/welfare/unemployment benefits pays a relatively small part of his salary into a mutual fund (of sorts).

Every man or woman who retires (at approx. 67) will get a monthly wage/payment out of that fund until the day they die. Most people also will have a nest egg of saved money, a kind of life insurance that will pay out at the retirement age for example, money they will receive from the sale of their house. Most people who work will also have 30 years of pension plan money to add to their government paid income.

In 2011, the average Dutch family had 54,000 dollars in their saving accounts.

It all comes down to choices, spend and be happy now or save and be a little less happier now and a lot happier later when you can actually retire at age 67 or whenever that person feels like retiring.

 

[jamesrage]

It's very difficult for me to believe the whole "life was better back when..." argument. Most times I hear that is from older people thinking about their youth.

My grandpa and his brothers and sisters and lived in a 1 bedroom home when they were growing up. My grandpa didn't even graduate middle school and worked since he was at least 12 years old to help his family out and put money in his pocket.

 

[Campbell]

Garbage. Why would you look at marginal tax rates when you should be looking at effective tax rates?

You mean like taxable year 2011 when Romney paid 14% on 15 million and my wife and I paid almost exactly the same percentage on less than $100,000. You people make my ass hole crave buttermilk.

 

[Captain Adverse]

I"d like to see better arguments than stories that people make up. Where are the hard statistics? People saved money and earned decent interest back then. People don't even have disposable income today, much less any way to grow their wealth. Not when banks are offering <1% for your savings.

What’s funny is your demanding facts when you simply cite a blog post where the author admits he is making his own estimates up based on the few facts he was able to uncover.

For example, he states he found a “construction worker” who earned $800 a year. New York City has always been one of the most expensive places to live in this nation, even back then when it was the highest populated city in the USA. But to take that rare example and try to project a national average annual income of $700? Hardly.

Fact ONE: The actual annual income for all workers in 1905 was $510.

Fact TWO: Looking at a real example of an annual salary in NYC in 1905 for a family of five employed members; we have the man earning $744 and his wife and three of his children contributing $410 and $346 respectively for a total of $1,500. Their annual expenses were $1,529, as in $29.00 over total earnings. Kinda hard to save when your annual expenses are greater than your annual earning, wouldn’t you think?

As for “Life at Home:”

• Rent is $14.00 a month for four rooms for nine people. The Stella family has no bath,and only one family in 10 has a toilet in their apartment.
• They do have a window and access to outer air; the apartments in the back of the building have no windows.
• The children older than 14 are considered boarders; it is the custom for older children to pay approximately $5.00 a week board to their mother, according to their ability to work, clothe themselves, and save toward getting married.
• Breakfast consists of rolls and coffee, occasionally eggs or oatmeal.

http://www.greyhouse.com/pdf/work_pgs.pdf

Funny that as terrible as this era was, it was the era where the US went from nothing to being the economic powerhouse of the world. Hmm, funny how the opposite is happening today when things are apparently soooooo much better.

The USA went “from nothing to being the economic powerhouse” on the backs of poor workers. For every idea a genius like Edison or Ford came up with, it took factory labor to produce, drivers to transport, and retail sales to pass on to the public. Most of the time these people got paid low wages for long hours (10 – 12 as I cited originally).

There was no factory or mine safety. There were no pollution regulations. There were no wage and hour laws. No benefits, no pensions. Children could work in factories at extremely young ages. Yeah, doctors were around but they weren’t free and they actually weren’t all that knowledgeable. So yes, because money was scarce it brought high interest rates if one could afford to save any. Most people could not afford to save any!

There are a lot of things wrong with our economy today, but trying to compare it to 1905?? That’s a stretch.

 

[Aunt Spiker]

Thanks Obama!

Actually, while I'm at it, thanks Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover.

I could keep going, but these ones are all terrible. And most of all, thanks Wilson for giving us the income tax and central bank, you really screwed over this country royally with these.

Now for the proof:

"The next time you drive through an old part of town and see the grand old houses, remember that people were able to build and buy them because their paychecks weren’t stripped bare. There were no income taxes in 1905, no sales taxes, no state taxes, and not much in the way of property taxes.

There was also no such thing as a military-industrial complex in those days, and – miracle of miracles – the rest of the world survived!"

Money Issues in the US: Why Can't We Party Like It's 1905?

Well let me go and get my new Galaxy Tablet and drive to McDonald's in the next town over (10 miles away - made possible with the invention of the interstate and 70mph speed limits) so I can use their free Wi-Fi to look up some stats on my tablet from the cozy comfort of my vehicle, a Mazda 5 mini van.

What was the equivalent - cost and function - in 1905? Oh yes, a horse and buggy, and a newspaper.

If I wanted to - I could put EVERY PENNY we earned into buying a home. Imagine the mansion I could afford if I didn't pay for all these little bells and whistles instead - building it from the group UP is actually cheaper than buying one already established (believe it or not). But the idea that every poor bloke could afford a 2-story home on the prairie is bunk. That was STILL reserved for the well-off. It just so happens that being well off back then was possible if you were a farmer (etc). Most people still lived in poorly constructed homes in the city - IF they even had a home. Same thing we have today: apartments and duplexes. Not everyone "owned their own home that they built" - no - that's a myth. Home are even exponentially bigger than they use to be, they're not plumbed and come with electricity. . .so on and so forth.

Overall - yeah - I think we're better off, financially, a lot of people are just too ****ing stupid to realize it.

People just DON'T want to live on such a tight shoestring budget where you bought your shelter and food, and a few extras, and not much else.

 

[Peter King]

Well let me go and get my new Galaxy Tablet and drive to McDonald's in the next town over (10 miles away - made possible with the invention of the interstate and 70mph speed limits) so I can use their free Wi-Fi to look up some stats on my tablet from the cozy comfort of my vehicle, a Mazda 5 mini van.

What was the equivalent - cost and function - in 1905? Oh yes, a horse and buggy, and a newspaper.

If I wanted to - I could put EVERY PENNY we earned into buying a home. Imagine the mansion I could afford if I didn't pay for all these little bells and whistles instead - building it from the group UP is actually cheaper than buying one already established (believe it or not). But the idea that every poor bloke could afford a 2-story home on the prairie is bunk. That was STILL reserved for the well-off. It just so happens that being well off back then was possible if you were a farmer (etc). Most people still lived in poorly constructed homes in the city - IF they even had a home. Same thing we have today: apartments and duplexes. Not everyone "owned their own home that they built" - no - that's a myth. Home are even exponentially bigger than they use to be, they're not plumbed and come with electricity. . .so on and so forth.

Overall - yeah - I think we're better off, financially, a lot of people are just too ****ing stupid to realize it.

People just DON'T want to live on such a tight shoestring budget where you bought your shelter and food, and a few extras, and not much else.

and electricity, that was also still in it's infancy.

And guns, normally a person had one, two or three guns/rifles to protect himself. Now some people spend thousands on very very expensive guns, rifles and items related to guns. Like everything in America the weapons industry has become a lot bigger than back in 1905 (not giving an opinion of guns, before or against but just reflecting on the economics of the gun industry today compared to the same industry in 1905).

And houses, a house today can be huge palatial structures that a lot of people in 1905 would have never expected to happen.

And kids used to have blocks, a doll and stuff like that. When I think of what my little 6 year old nephew has it boggles the mind, a tablet, a computer, a nintendo gameboy, wii (with a lot of games for them), then we have loads of board games, action figures, lego, playmobil, movie related toys (from Cars for example, spiderman) and loads and loads more games and toys. For kids in 1905 it would be awesome to get sweets but for kids today sweets are a virtual daily occurrence.

Let us be honest, the world of today does not compare to the one in 1905 in almost everything one can imagine.

 

[Carjosse]

Prove it.

Well for one I live in a large multistory house with central-heating and my family is middle class or lower middle class depending on your definition of it. There is also something sitting on my desk right now that allows me access to almost any piece of information in the world and cost next to nothing. There is also the fact that most of the parts came from an ocean away and was set to me in less than a week. I have also been to Europe twice for vacation, something that would never have been done in 1900 unless you were ultra rich. I also have the ability to visit a dentist and multiple doctors at no direct expense to myself. I also know that if anyone in my family is laid-off they will have employment insurance, they also get a child benefit form the Federal government to pay for me. I have a chance to go one of the most prestigious universities in the country and afford it which again would never be done in 1900. I can also go into the grocery and buy delicacies form foreign countries fairly cheap. I'm just lower middle-class. Even the poor today have computers or TVs, cars, central heating. You can get an education for free and can get you into prestigious universities aswell no matter your income.