{"id":19000,"date":"2013-02-13T00:02:28","date_gmt":"2013-02-13T05:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=19000"},"modified":"2013-02-12T20:42:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-13T01:42:59","slug":"debunking-the-1970s-had-a-higher-standard-of-living-than-today-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/02\/13\/debunking-the-1970s-had-a-higher-standard-of-living-than-today-meme\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking the “1970s had a higher standard of living than today” meme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don Boudreaux<\/a> produces an anecdotal list of things that refute the inane notion that America’s standard of living peaked in the 1970s:<\/p>\n

What follows here is drawn from memory. Perhaps my memory is grossly distorted, but my report of it here is an undistorted reflection of that memory. Here\u2019s some of what I recall, of relevance to this discussion, from middle-class America of the 1970s; I offer the 25 items on this list in no particular order, except as they come to me.<\/p>\n

(1) Automobiles broke down much more frequently than they break down today, hence, leaving motorists stranded, sometimes for hours, more often than is the case today.<\/p>\n

(2) Automobiles rusted faster and more thoroughly than they do today.<\/p>\n

(3) Someone in his or her early 70s was widely regarded as being quite old.<\/p>\n

(4) \u201cOld\u201d people back then were much more likely to wear dentures than are \u201cold\u201d people today.<\/p>\n

(5) Frozen foods in supermarkets were gawdawful by the standards of today \u2013 in terms both of quality and of selection.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

(21) Coffee sucked. (It was almost all made from robusta beans.) And the selection of teas was pretty much limited to whatever Lipton sold.<\/p>\n

(22) A diagnosis of cancer was far more frightening than it is today. Any person so diagnosed was regarded as being as good as dead.<\/p>\n

(23) Going to college was much more unusual than it is today.<\/p>\n

(24) Contact lenses were much more expensive than they are today. I purchased insurance (!) on my first pair of soft contact lenses (which I bought in 1980) in order to protect myself against the financial consequences of losing or damaging the one<\/em> pair that I bought. (Such lenses were bought one<\/em> pair at a time.)<\/p>\n

(25) The idea of widespread use of personal computers seemed like science fiction. I very clearly recall overhearing, in the Spring of 1980, one of my economics professors, Wayne Shell (who also taught computer science), telling someone that he believed that, within a few years, many American households will have a computer. I thought at the time that Dr. Shell\u2019s prediction was fancifully far-fetched.<\/p>\n

I could go on, listing at least another 50 such recollections. But instead I\u2019ll end this post here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Boudreaux produces an anecdotal list of things that refute the inane notion that America’s standard of living peaked in the 1970s: What follows here is drawn from memory. Perhaps my memory is grossly distorted, but my report of it here is an undistorted reflection of that memory. Here\u2019s some of what I recall, of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,74,66,28,15,13],"tags":[263,598,111,174,290],"class_list":["post-19000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-food","category-health-science","category-media","category-technology","category-usa","tag-1970s","tag-aging","tag-cars","tag-innovation","tag-statistics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4Ws","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19005,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19000\/revisions\/19005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}