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McDonald's prices are actually lower today than they were in the 1980s when adjusted for inflation.
However, incomes are lower than that, so we're still paying more.
No real incomes adjusted for inflation are higher then in the 1980s. Though comparable to where they previously peaked in the 1970s.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/
Current real wages are similar to that 2019 number.
Still terrible when you consider it took 50 years for real wages to just effectively tread water though. The economy grew a ton over that time period. Means all the increased value didn't make it's way into more wages. So on average people make a little more than in the 1980s even considering increased cost of living, but they should be making much more even than that.
It's not the wages. It's the proportional cost of living. Proportionality matters more than anything.
TVs are proportionally cheaper than ever, but housing is not.
That's wages weighted to the cost of living. That's what you're looking at in the chart I posted. You can find the same chart from many other sources. And yes it absolutely includes housing costs not just tvs. Even includes services too. Anything people spend money on to live, and in the proportions they spend money on it. If people aren't spending very much on tvs it becomes a smaller part of the measure and is weighted less.
Part of the reason you see the jump in real wages in the 2008 recession on that chart is related to the crash in housing prices. If things are proportionally costing more in relation to wages then the line goes downward, if things are proportionally cheaper compared to wages, then it goes upwards. It crashed in the 1980s, was flat for many years as wages and cost of living both were increasing at about the same rate in the 90s so no real gains. It was only recently we even caught up to where we used to be in the 70s. The commenter above you said our wages are lower than they were in the 1980s, that's just totally untrue. If they said 1970s they'd be closer to reality since we're hovering near that number.
Wages not weighted to the cost of living would look more like this and basically almost always be going up. I can't find a chart of wages not weighted to that over the exact same time period though but you get the picture.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/243842/annual-mean-wages-and-salary-per-employee-in-the-us/
I find that incredibly difficult to believe considering the minimum wage is hardly gone up. That my parents were able to afford a house, but I can't.
Not disagreeing at all with you on minimum wage, you're absolutely correct. These are average wages across the whole economy (or non supervisory wages or something but close enough). If you plotted real minimum wage vs where we used to be it's waaaayyy lower now. It's nowhere near kept up with increased cost of living (certainly federal, not sure if any state has increased theirs enough to compensate).
If you're interested in more on how the cpi works or what is or isn't included and some of the arguments both ways, I found this to be an interesting read that summarizes a lot of the controversies about the cpi figures well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/technology/inflation-measure-cpi-accuracy.html
Or archive version https://archive.is/zvtPw
Though be aware that article is from a year and a half ago, so none of the inflation figures it gives in it are current.
I was totally ready to call your BS, but you're right.
Cost of big Mac combo in 1980: 2.59, 10.24 after adjusted for 2023
Cost of big Mac combo in the app today: 9.20 (For my area anyway)
I had looked it up in the past. Now size wise it is probably smaller.
Really that renders the "defense" of their prices pretty meaningless.
You think there's the same amount of beef at the same quality level?