one last "woof" regarding your comparison about the amount of money a person must make today vs 1963......
I claim that you cannot use the calculations you presented....
because the value of a dollar nor the trading activity/relative "worth" of one item (silver, in this case) is the result of several factors....
a couple of them are:
1) the availability of money itself
2) the availability of real goods and services
the above implies that there is a relationship between the price of a common food item, a common article of clothing, the cost of a gallon of gas, the cost of an ounce of gold, etc.....
the above relationship will remain relatively stable as long as the economy remains stable....
as economic times change, the above relationship changes....
and, as you well know....especially, with worthless fiat curency.....the value of the dollar is largely due to the manipulative political effects upon the population....
so, it's essentially impossible to take one item....especially a speculative item, such as silver and attempt to calculate the value of a dollar....
it would seem much more valuable to use a number which reflects the buying power of a dollar in the economy....
IMO....that is a much more realistic appraisal of the relative value of a dollar over time because it tells you the cost necessary to sustain yourself....
IMO.....a number like the consumer price index tells us much more about where we are today compared to 1963....
if we use the CPI we find that $1 in 1963 has inflated into $7.5
let's see....is that right....
ok I'm as old as Methuselah....I was in high school in 1963....
a McDonalds burger was 19 cents....we can get one on the dollar menu....thats a little more than 5 times inflated....
can't use gasoline as an indicator....
can't use gold...
can't use cigarettes....
how about a movie theater ticket? between $1 & $1.50 in 1963...today $8 to $9....that's about 7 times.....
a quart of milk....up about 5 to 6 times
a guy's tee shirt.....1 or 2 bucks then....over $10 now
same for a pair of blue jeans.....less than $10 in 1963....how much today?? $29, $39, $49....
for your purpose, the CPI is a much much better tool because it's inflation adjusted....
and, if a dollar today is worth about 1/7th of what it was in 1963, then, your average $8k of income translates into between $55-60 thousand today.....
that means the middle class today is much like the middle class it's always been....
it's just a different psychology today....
politicians and greed makes everyone think they are entitled to just jump on an airplane and go wherever they want....
they think that someone who has more is a bad person and they are getting screwed.....
they want, they want, they're told they should have....
reality....their crappy lives are better today than they would have been in 1963....
only difference is....
it's politically correct to bitch about it and demand more for doing less, now
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