politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
That's the civil war tax. The accuracy of today's government inflation statistics are contested, for example see ShadowStats as an alternative (although it doesn't go back to the civil war). Per the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the average hourly pay rate was $0.098 per hour in 1860. Assuming 40 hours of work a week and 52 weeks per year, that equates to about $200 per year, which means $800 was four times average yearly wages.
Today's average yearly wage is somewhere around $60,000 per year. Multiply that by 4 and you're at $240,000. I'm not sure I'd characterize that as rich, but it's certainly upper middle class.
My point is that your inflation statistic of $800 in the 1860s being equivalent to $28,000 in today's dollars is not particularly believable.
40 hour workweek didn’t really begin until 1940 so the average yearly wage based upon that isn’t likely a good estimate.
Then run the numbers on a 60-hour workweek, which ups the yearly wage to $300, making $800 more than two and a half times the average wage. $28K in today's dollars is still way too low to be believable.
I'm reminded of the Architects phrase from The Matrix, "Denial is the most predictable of human responses."
Your claim I’m wrong because I’m in denial while you outright deny. Sure thing.
I never said you were in denial, I said I was reminded of that phrase. The unreliability of government inflation statistics is well known. Shadowing Reality by John Williams explains it well enough. He claims its a bipartisan effort which reduces fiscal expenses by manipulating the CPI.
Inflation data being a lie is definitely something I’ll agree to.