How much have prices gone up since 2000?

[DawnM]

I pulled out an old scrapbook of mine. In it was the first flight I ever paid for myself. It was a ticket to see my folks in Kenya. I paid $1,600 for it in 1987. That ticket isn't much more now. You are right.

Dawn

do you know one thing that really hasn't gone up? Airfare! Yep, well, at least in my mind. For as much as we all complain about the cost to fly to Disney.... The year 2000 is a great example, because it was the year I got married at Disney...and I remember being ecstatic to find airfare for $250 pp. Of course, I didn't have to pay baggage fees then either, but compared to everything else....not bad. I honestly can't remember since then ever paying more than that per person to fly to Orlando.

 

[DawnM]

Last year we paid $850 each to London.

International airfare has though. East coast to Europe round trip is around $1500. I remember when it was $600 (16-20 years ago when I flew on my parents' dime).

 

[havaneselover]

Last year we paid $850 each to London.

Airline fares are up 48% over the last ten years compared with a 26% uptick in overall prices. While people may be getting deals here and there, on average prices are increasing almost twice as fast as overall prices. So I disagree that airfare hasn't gone up much.

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

 

[eliza61]

Airline fares are up 48% over the last ten years compared with a 26% uptick in overall prices. While people may be getting deals here and there, on average prices are increasing almost twice as fast as overall prices. So I disagree that airfare hasn't gone up much.

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

I think you have to keep it in relation to oil prices. fuel prices and airline ticket prices unfortunately have a direct relationship.

So how much has fuel cost gone up? Has airline fees gone up out of sync with fuel cost.

It's ironic because for many of the flights I take prices have gone down since the 80's when airline deregulation occurred. I went to school in Pittsburgh and when I was in school (pre deregulation) it was god awful expensive to fly from NYC to Pittsburgh, well over 300 bucks. Now I can catch a flight for about 1/2 that. thanks to low budget airlines popping up.

Anyone remember Peoples airline?

 

[crisi]

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember pre-deregulation airfares - they weren't cheap.

For us, we live in an expensive airfare city (Minneapolis-St. Paul) - airfare around here is always expensive - its gone up some since our kids were small (I sort of date everything to pre-kid/post kid - and they are 14 and 15 years old) - but not incredibly.

 

[Dakota731]

If things are so normal then why is our nation's food stamp budget nearly twice the size it was in 2008?

We live in the northeast and our housing prices have fallen as much as by half in the past few years, and foreclosures are at rates no one every dreamed could happen. It's scary and maybe it's regional but in my long life, I have never seen this country in such a terrible state especially for the middle class.

 

[pryncess527]

If things are so normal then why is our nation's food stamp budget nearly twice the size it was in 2008?

Inflation is normal, but as noted, wages have stagnated in the last 15 years and not kept pace with inflation, hence the greater need for food aid. Plus unemployment, while recovering, is still not at pre-recession levels.

 

[eliza61]

If things are so normal then why is our nation's food stamp budget nearly twice the size it was in 2008?

We live in the northeast and our housing prices have fallen as much as by half in the past few years, and foreclosures are at rates no one every dreamed could happen. It's scary and maybe it's regional but in my long life, I have never seen this country in such a terrible state especially for the middle class.

From what point?

See the problem is people got use to the unsustainable levels of the real estate. I just sold my house for 255K which is a pretty normal level for my area, my house in 2007 would have gone for almost 400K. the real estate bubble had inflated all the houses on the east coast. cheap money.
People were taking out loans on their houses and then when they market crashed suddenly everyone is under water.

Do people really think that prices should remain at 2000 price level?

last year the stock market was great, up 28% do I think that's going to happen every year? no of course not.

I'm in no way saying the middle class isn't hurting, we are, but also remember that 2007/2008 we had absolutely the worst recession in modern life.
It was horrible and more suffering than I had every seen. I mean entire cities decimated.
My church runs a food bank, I remember when I started volunteering, we were open one night a week on Wednesday. Now, we are darn near 7 days a week the need has grown.

 

[Dakota731]

I'm sure I'm older than most who post on these boards, so I've been through a lot of different phases in our country's history, but I do not remember ever feeling as bleak and frightened for our children as I do now.
Kids are graduating college and either are not finding jobs at all or are vastly underemployed and making minimum wage (and with a boatload of debt as well).
Companies don't provide pensions any more and with the National debt over 15 trillion dollars, and for the first time in history exceeding 100% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product there is no way a country can sustain this type of fiscal irresponsibility. The hope of ever getting back anything an entire generation paid into social security is next to none.
The poverty rate is now at 15% - it was 12% in 2007. Median family income is 5.1 percent below the inflation-adjusted 2008 level. The unemployment rate has gone from 4.9% in 2008 to 7% which it is now. So excuse me for not buying into the "everything is rosy" scenario that some are trying to make us believe.

 

[eliza61]

I'm sure I'm older than most who post on these boards, so I've been through a lot of different phases in our country's history, but I do not remember ever feeling as bleak and frightened for our children as I do now.
Kids are graduating college and either are not finding jobs at all or are vastly underemployed and making minimum wage (and with a boatload of debt as well).
Companies don't provide pensions any more and with the National debt over 15 trillion dollars, and for the first time in history exceeding 100% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product there is no way a country can sustain this type of fiscal irresponsibility. The hope of ever getting back anything an entire generation paid into social security is next to none.
The poverty rate is now at 15% - it was 12% in 2007. Median family income is 5.1 percent below the inflation-adjusted 2008 level. The unemployment rate has gone from 4.9% in 2008 to 7% which it is now. So excuse me for not buying into the "everything is rosy" scenario that some are trying to make us believe.

I don't think anyone, any where is touting "every thing is rosy" but neither am I buying "our country is doomed either".

Like any thing is a matter of perspective and most things are very cylindrical.

Now I'm an elder statesmen on this board also. I'm also a minority so sorry I do remember much harder times.

First and foremost, for much of the country our standard of living has risen dramatically. Materialistically we simply have more. Education wise we also have advance. the simply fact is that more kids than ever are getting an education and regardless to the debt load, more kids than ever have the OPPORTUNITY to go.

Social security is definitely good for the next 30 years. will it have to change? sure but then that's one of the reasons it's in the mess it's in. It was designed under one condition and never changed for a changing environment and unfortunately we've got a bunch of buffoons running the circus so it's highly unlikely any fixes will occur any time soon.

Back when SS started the average life span was 65 maybe 70, now we are living well past that.
1945 there were about 120 million people in the us, now there are over 300 million.

Medical advances are through the roof. My parents generation kids routinely died or were handicapped by polio.


I simply think we all have an affinity in bad times to remember the "good ole" days. the reality is the "good ole days" weren't always that good.

And ironically the real problem facing our kids has nothing to do with economics. for the first time in a long time, this generation of school age kids will be the first in a long time with a shorter life span due to the garbage we feed them. totally avoidable health issues (diabetes, obesity, heart conditions) will shorten their life spans by 3 years.

 

[crisi]

From what point?

See the problem is people got use to the unsustainable levels of the real estate. I just sold my house for 255K which is a pretty normal level for my area, my house in 2007 would have gone for almost 400K. the real estate bubble had inflated all the houses on the east coast. cheap money.
People were taking out loans on their houses and then when they market crashed suddenly everyone is under water.

Also, unsustainable levels of consumption.

This question is for those of us who have passed 40 - how many big family vacations did you take growing up? What was your cable bill? How much did your family spend on cell phones when you were in high school?

I remember no cable, a VCR being a luxury purchase. Some of my friends had cable and MTV - what a luxury! One TV in the house. One vacation my senior year to Disney. No video game systems, we went to about four movies a year (movies used to be a big thing, remember?) and went out to dinner as a family only for "great" report cards (four times a year, assuming we all did well). We had one bathroom in the house I grew up in - one bathroom and three teenaged girls. And my parents were well off - we lived on a lake with a sailboat and a speedboat, my father drove a decent car (my mother drove a car that worked), and my parents could afford Nikes. (Remember when you had to have the Nikes with the red swoosh?)

Take a visit to 1978 sometime - there was a recession on and life was simplier. Gas was expensive compared to what it had been. Vacations were a true luxury. The 1990s reset all our expectations about what was "normal." And it may take a long time before our expectations come back in line with what is actually normal.

 

[Dakota731]

I simply think we all have an affinity in bad times to remember the "good ole" days. the reality is the "good ole days" weren't always that good.

Nope some of it is just facts like the sad truth that Americans in their 30s are the only age group in this country worse off than their counterparts three decades ago. A recent study by the Urban Institute shows the net worth of today's 30-somethings -- adjusted for inflation -- is down 21 percent from what 30-somethings enjoyed in 1983. It doesn't do you much good to have more material things if you can't pay the rent or foreclose on your house. And there's not much point accumulating mountains of debt going to college if you can't get a job.
I will agree with you on the medicine improving in this country, but I'm not sure that will continue to happen under the ACA. I have many friends who own their own businesses who no longer can afford health plans for their employees or now have to cut the hours to keep them part-time. And several of my stay at home mom friends have been cut from their husband's policy. Don't even get me started on the cuts in medical research grants which I know firsthand on since a family member works at a huge cancer research hospital.
I'm not saying our country is doomed, but I do think it will take a lot of changes to get it on the right track again. And nothing can change if citizens choose to bury their heads in the sand and believe what they are fed by people who have ulterior motives and have something to gain with the status quo.

 

[crisi]

That's at least in part because 30 somethings spend more than 30 somethings did in 1983. In order to amass a net worth, you have to save more than you spend. That isn't possible if you buy Coach handbags and have cable tv and a cell phone. Nor if you picked a college because it was your hearts desire rather than because it was affordable and you worked nights, weekends and summers to put yourself through state school over six years.

I'm not saying the economy hasn't sucked - but its been bad both directions - we expect too much too fast. We take on debt too fast - and the economy doesn't support it. But instead of looking at what the economy can support and spending appropriately - we buy homes with granite countertops.

 

[eliza61]

Nope some of it is just facts like the sad truth that Americans in their 30s are the only age group in this country worse off than their counterparts three decades ago. A recent study by the Urban Institute shows the net worth of today's 30-somethings -- adjusted for inflation -- is down 21 percent from what 30-somethings enjoyed in 1983. It doesn't do you much good to have more material things if you can't pay the rent or foreclose on your house. And there's not much point accumulating mountains of debt going to college if you can't get a job.
I will agree with you on the medicine improving in this country, but I'm not sure that will continue to happen under the ACA. I have many friends who own their own businesses who no longer can afford health plans for their employees or now have to cut the hours to keep them part-time. And several of my stay at home mom friends have been cut from their husband's policy. Don't even get me started on the cuts in medical research grants which I know firsthand on since a family member works at a huge cancer research hospital.
I'm not saying our country is doomed, but I do think it will take a lot of changes to get it on the right track again. And nothing can change if citizens choose to bury their heads in the sand and believe what they are fed by people who have ulterior motives and have something to gain with the status quo.

What's the right track?

that's the key question. You know people who lost their health care, I work with low income citizens who for the first time actually can go to the doctor BEFORE the problem gets to the ER stage thanks to the ACA and no they are not welfare queens sitting at home having babies.

As I said before it's a matter of perspectives. Over the years some how we started the message that everyone in this country should have a house. We started calling it the "American" dream. when in reality that is a very real product of these past two generations.

My husband started his own business and him and his partners made sure they were able to offer all their employees health care. sure, it was a bare bones policy but they felt strongly about it and everyone from the secretary to him and his partners had health care, so no not every small business is dropping their employee health care and some of the multi gabillion corporations even in good times never offered it.

Im not a fan of the ACA but I'm not a fan of health care in this country period. I don't particularly like a health care system that is dependant on the ability to pay.

Jobs are harder to come by and a lot of that isn't due so much to economics but technology. factory jobs are gone (but coming back ironically) and jobs that once supported those without college degrees are gone. that has skewed things to one side. Also it's a global market.

So what's truly driving the drop in net worth of 30 some things? the 30 some thing of 83 could get a job in a car factory and make a decent living. that's not just economy causing that, that's a shift in the way we live.
As crisi said, I was a 30 some thing in the 80's, my pay was waaay lower than it is today but my savings was much higher because we were just coming off a generation of savings. 30 some things today expect to have a mastercard in their pocket and for a long time did not save any thing. heck, it took a major depression/recession for us to figure credit was bad.

What's driving kids getting big college debt? Is it that tuition is sky high or a combination of sky high tuition along with easy money (it is ridiculously easy to get a school loan) combined with the view that every kid some how DESERVES a four year, live in the dorm college experience?
Now community colleges and trade schools enrollment is booming, but if you had asked one of those 30 some things back when they were 18 to go to a cc I'm willing to bet in no way would they have went for it.

My oldest son is a special needs kid, so he failed at college. He's in his 2nd year of a plumbers/pipe fitter apprenticeship, he still catches jokes from his h.s. friends about trade school. usually they joke until he tells them he gets union wages for on the job training.

let me repeat, I am in no way ignoring the fact that people are hurting, every one is feeling the pinch. Most economist will tell you though that inflation beats deflation 6 days a week and twice on Sundays

Personally I think the 70's were much worse and we managed to survive.

 

[Dakota731]

In order to amass a net worth, you have to save more than you spend.

How about telling our government that? It's hard to teach young people fiscal responsibility when the national debt has doubled since 2008. When a country is now borrowing more than it's producing which is the US today, it's not much different than a young adult using a second credit card to pay the debt on his first.

Personally I think the 70's were much worse and we managed to survive.

It that's the case, then why were 1 in 50 Americans on food stamps in the 1970s and 1 in 7 Americans are on them now? We are either much worse off in this economy or we are giving food stamps to people who don't need them. Either way it's government out of control.

Jobs are harder to come by and a lot of that isn't due so much to economics but technology. factory jobs are gone

Factory jobs are gone here due to government regulation and taxation. In 1970s, China made very little of anything. Today its factory output is almost 20 percent of world production and about 15 percent of manufacturing value added. Just since 2001 China has gained 40 million factory jobs.
The jobs growing in this country are government jobs - shuffling paper jobs that produce nothing to export to other countries and no profit is generated.

But these are things that don't seem to concern people any more. We as a nation are much more interested in what the Kardashians are doing than the future of this great nation. It will take a totally new mindset that government is not the answer to all our problems to get back to the entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great.

 

[NotUrsula]

Also, unsustainable levels of consumption.

This question is for those of us who have passed 40 - how many big family vacations did you take growing up? What was your cable bill? How much did your family spend on cell phones when you were in high school?

I remember no cable, a VCR being a luxury purchase. Some of my friends had cable and MTV - what a luxury! One TV in the house. One vacation my senior year to Disney. No video game systems, we went to about four movies a year (movies used to be a big thing, remember?) and went out to dinner as a family only for "great" report cards (four times a year, assuming we all did well). We had one bathroom in the house I grew up in - one bathroom and three teenaged girls. And my parents were well off - we lived on a lake with a sailboat and a speedboat, my father drove a decent car (my mother drove a car that worked), and my parents could afford Nikes. (Remember when you had to have the Nikes with the red swoosh?)

Take a visit to 1978 sometime - there was a recession on and life was simplier. Gas was expensive compared to what it had been. Vacations were a true luxury. The 1990s reset all our expectations about what was "normal." And it may take a long time before our expectations come back in line with what is actually normal.

Well, cell phones are a bit of a red herring, as they didn't exist in the 1970's. The phone bill (no call waiting, no children's line,and two rented phones) was about $30/mo.; about 4 days' net pay for me. MANY families in my low-income area did not have phones; it was a fixed expense that got dropped when the going got tough. We never had cable; it didn't exist where I lived. Lots of people had boats, but everyone I knew used them to fish, not play.
I never cared about the Nikes; our schools did not allow sneakers to be worn except for gym, and my parents simply didn't buy me any shoes that could not be worn for school. (Sandals were fine, fwiw.)

As to restaurants; that's kind of cultural. I grew up in an area where people eat out a LOT, and even my working-class family did, about once per week. However, it wasn't a white-tablecloth kind of place, and the typical bill for 4 of us was about $12-18. I can remember going to visit relatives in NYC in 1977 and nearly dropping dead in shock at the prices in coffee shops, which were easily 4X what the same dishes cost back home in the South..

The biggest difference I see is square footage. When I was a kid you had to be rich to have a house over about 1600 sq.ft. These days that is considered small by many people. (Most people find my house VERY tiny at 1100 sq. ft.)

 

[lauradis]

If things are so normal then why is our nation's food stamp budget nearly twice the size it was in 2008?

We live in the northeast and our housing prices have fallen as much as by half in the past few years, and foreclosures are at rates no one every dreamed could happen. It's scary and maybe it's regional but in my long life, I have never seen this country in such a terrible state especially for the middle class.

simple answer personal debit is up,

 

[crisi]

Well, cell phones are a bit of a red herring, as they didn't exist in the 1970's. The phone bill (no call waiting, no children's line,and two rented phones) was about $30/mo.; about 4 days' net pay for me. MANY families in my low-income area did not have phones; it was a fixed expense that got dropped when the going got tough. We never had cable; it didn't exist where I lived. Lots of people had boats, but everyone I knew used them to fish, not play.
I never cared about the Nikes; our schools did not allow sneakers to be worn except for gym, and my parents simply didn't buy me any shoes that could not be worn for school. (Sandals were fine, fwiw.)

As to restaurants; that's kind of cultural. I grew up in an area where people eat out a LOT, and even my working-class family did, about once per week. However, it wasn't a white-tablecloth kind of place, and the typical bill for 4 of us was about $12-18. I can remember going to visit relatives in NYC in 1977 and nearly dropping dead in shock at the prices in coffee shops, which were easily 4X what the same dishes cost back home in the South..

The biggest difference I see is square footage. When I was a kid you had to be rich to have a house over about 1600 sq.ft. These days that is considered small by many people. (Most people find my house VERY tiny at 1100 sq. ft.)

That's sort of the point - those things didn't exist - they weren't part of the budget. We've added a ton of stuff that the average middle class family has and at the same time, haven't seen real wages increase to cover it.

 

[gina2000]

College debt - read it, you may be surprised.


http://www.theatlantic.com/educatio...h-of-working-your-way-through-college/359735/

 

[eliza61]

That's sort of the point - those things didn't exist - they weren't part of the budget. We've added a ton of stuff that the average middle class family has and at the same time, haven't seen real wages increase to cover it.

Totally true.
Our base line has jumped way up. I totally admit that I've latched on also. it's very easy to forget a few dollars here, a few there really add up. Case in point, my new to me (used) car has sirrius radio in it. Wow do I love that thing, who'd thunk to pay for radio but now I'm totally hooked, chaching here's an extra bill.

Now I'd like to think that if I had to start trimming the budget I would have no problem letting go but so many things I do know that I take for granted.