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It's not different.



What? Are you kidding?

In 1968, my parents bought their 2nd house here in Philly - a semi-detached (twin, with no garage) for $12K. Some new construction single story (detached) ranchers (which are rare here in the city) about 4 years later, were going for $15K - this was early '70s.

During the '80s, the only houses here near that $50K price were 2-story, 3 bedroom/1 bath row homes with 10-ft fronts that were averaging $39K. Everything else was running in the $125K range.

And I wish a new car was $3k back then. I bought a USED low mileage (had about 9,000 miles on it), 1978 4-cylinder, no air, no power steering car (from a neighbor) in '86 for $1k (as a favor since it was the neighbor's aunt's car that he was trying to get rid of after she passed away). My first "new" car in '88 (an '89 Chevy sedan model) was like $16,000 with 8% interest rates.

In 2005, when I bought my next new car (a compact SUV), the average price of a sedan was a whopping $26,000 (e.g., I remember I saw the small Chevy Malibus going for that price). I was able to get my Ford Escape for about that after I traded in my then-almost 16 year old Chevy sedan, with incentives and whatnot.

The "$150K house" was that same row house here, except once the idiots who were going around "flipping" houses after gutting them, (and gentrifying neighborhoods), put some up for sale. None of these were "single" (detached) homes on a lot. They are 60 houses per block (30 on each side of the street). The "semi-detached" (twin) homes were $250K.

Singles here in the city in the mid-2000s? Starting at $600K. Builders were buying up lots to put up "2-story, 2-bedroom, 1-bath Townhome" (row home) "condos" for $399K.

When I bought by current car (a full SUV) literally 10 years ago, it was $51K.

In other words, it all depends on where you live. I have some former co-workers who moved down to GA in the late 2000s/early 2010s because of the "cheap" housing. Literally $150K for something that would easily cost $300 - $400K here.



Ummm... that's a lot of bunk talk. Thanks to the pandemic, wage growth has amazingly gone up for the first time in decades. What is missing now is getting the federal minimum wage off the current $7.25 that it has been at for the last 17 years because there are still some states, like mine (PA), that have refused to raise for the state itself (we are surrounded by states that have min. wages going from $10.10 - $17.50/hr, where even lowly WV has a higher minimum wage than PA).





We have been "breaking" for years now. Ageism has been going on for decades.



I linked to a federal response to that "training/apprenticeship" need that was just announced in July. If you go to the link, you will see it is across all sectors including IT and even healthcare fields, and there is even a chart of participating institutions.



But it has been. Before you were born and as you were growing up.



Sweetheart, you are young. Most of DU are boomers and GenX (50 yos/60 yos/70 yos), and we have been there, done that, wore the t-shirt, wore that out, wore a new t-shirt, wore that out. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.