Tuesday, April 25, 2017

I Miss the Old Days

Remembering What a Buck Could Buy in the 1950s and 1960s: A dollar really went far in the 1950s and 1960s — much farther than it does today. Before you get too nostalgic, remember that the average home was worth $7,354, a new Volkswagen Beetle could be yours for $1,280, and tuition at the University of Pennsylvania was $600.

4 comments:

Todd Mason said...

And, more importantly, salaries. Though we still had a middle class in the 1950s and '60s, less so now, and thanks, almost all our pols over the decades for helping that along.

When I started at the University of Hawaii in 1982, in-state tuition was, IIRC, $317 a semester, though it might've been $315. I don't think you'll find hat too often today (nor in 1982, really).

Rick Robinson said...

Those 20 cent burgers were McDonalds. At the same time, a Der Weinerschnizel chili dog was 18 cents. A buck bought a meal.

Don Coffin said...

At Burger King (at least in Indianapolis in the early 1960s), a burger, fries, and a cope went for $0.45.

And in the late '50s, my weekly allowance was a munificent $0.50.

Jeff Meyerson said...

When my brother and I were in junior high school (ca. early 1960s), my mother gave us $1 for lunch, for which we were able to get two slices of pizza EACH, as well as drinks.

And we got change back.

I miss the old days.