You were better paid in 1978 than they are now, by all of the common measures of real value. From the Eh.net deflator at In 2003, $75.00 from 1978 is worth: $211.60 using the Consumer Price Index $174.24 using the GDP deflator $202.55 using the unsend wage $275.07 using the GDP per capita $358.58 using the relative share of GDP This does not include the value of your union benefits. In the 1970's, people used to speak of "taxi-driving English Ph.D.s." This phrase was usually taken to mean that jobs teaching English language & literature at university level were so scarce that newly minted Ph.D.s had to drive taxis to make ends meet, but it can equally well mean that driving a N.Y.C. cab paid better than teaching English. If we accept the C.P.I. deflator as a measure of real purchasing power, $75 a day for five days a week, fifty weeks a year is just a little over $50,000 a year--not a bad starting salary in academia, and quite enough to live on in an area with a low cost of living. sugar and MinoritiesJB That really depends on the user...some people are slayed by a hit of dirt weed others have built up a resistence to where it takes a couple joints of... In New York, however, the cost of property has historically increased faster than inflation as measured by the C.P.I. This means that $50,000 a year in 2003 can't buy the same standard of living as the nominal equivalent in 1978. And today's cab drivers are making closer to $30,000 a year. Thus, the appeal of cab driving as an occupation becomes increasingly restricted to groups which are able to depress their costs by artificial means (e.g., by living in overcrowded conditions) or by tolerating desperately poor standards of living. So, yes, a N.Y.C. cab ride is one of the world's greatest bargains. So is washed ready-to-eat salad, for similar reasons (cf. Felicity Lawrence's 'Not on the Label').
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