Inflation calculator: Curious about how prices of the 1960s (or other eras) compare to now? Plug it in this inflation calculator offered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Historical Census of Housing Tables Home Values: See median home values for each state from 1940 to 2000
These days, with foreclosures and unemployment high and consumer confidence low, we tend to think we are worse off than we ever have been.
But are we really worse off than, say, the generation who raised families 50 years ago?
Take a look at what’s around you in your living room or kitchen. Odds are, there are a lot more appliances and other trappings that were out of reach for most Americans in the 1950s and 60s.
And that material wealth is one way to gauge how far we’ve come, according to economics professor John Scott.
"We are certainly better off that we have more of a provision of worldly goods," said Scott, associate professor of economics and director of the Center for Economic Education in the Mike Cottrell School of Business at North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega. "We have less provision of household goods, so we do substitute."
Scott cited that the poor of today are far better off than in the 1960s.
"Nowadays poor people have color TVs; people then didn’t have color TVs," he said. "At that time a toaster in the early ’60s was a good wedding gift, but today it would just be nothing ... it took a long time (in the 1960s) to earn enough to buy a toaster; nowadays if you worked an hour at McDonalds that would be enough to buy a toaster."
The average American family — complete with 2.5 kids, a house and maybe even a dog — today compared with that of the 1960s has changed quite a bit when we look at family andhousehold financial dynamics.
Mark and Nancy Creviston, residents of Lanier Village Estates in Gainesville, were a military family and had their three children during the 1960s. Raising their children outside of the United States on Army bases in Taiwan and England did save some money, but they do notice the differences in families today.
"Probably the biggest difference is that there was no credit," Mark said. "If there wasn’t any money in the bank then there wasn’t any money.
"I can remember writing a check for $20 cash at the beginning of the month and that was the spending money for the month."
Nancy added, "It was a checkbook life."
The Crevistons purchased the second family car in the mid 1960s, they only had one television and going out to dinner was nearly nonexistent.
"The first time we had a second car I guess would have been about 1965 or so; we’d already been married 10 years," he said. "I bought an old ’52 Ford and rebuilt the engine and spent another $200 in parts and when we left I sold it for $150.
"We didn’t go out to dinner — we didn’t have any money. If you were traveling there was Howard Johnson’s; you could stop at a Howard Johnson’s and not break the bank, but beyond that we would call it Nancy’s Place and we would put the tailgate down of the station wagon and she’d make lunch back there."
Families also weren’t able to take many vacations unless it was camping or day trips — both of which have been more popular in the past year.
"We actually saw a lot of families taking those day trips this past summer," said Sherri Hooper, director of Interactive Neighborhood for Kids.
Chris Jones, owner of Monkey Barrel on the downtown Gainesville square, agreed that things were simpler when he was growing up in the 1970s. These days, he said, his three daughters are busy with school or other activities much of the time and the husband pitches in a lot more at home than in years before.
"Kids are more involved in extracurricular activities; I know we do a lot of that," Jones said. "A lot more time is spent away from home. When I grew up, I got off the school bus and played out in the creek ... I think I had a great childhood."
Max and Wanda Cantrell, parents of six children and owners of Victory Paper Co., said things have drastically changed when you look at what families own now compared with 40 or 50 years ago.
"We had one television (growing up) but we didn’t have the money to go out to eat," she said. "My mom and dad raised four girls so it was hard for them ... now there’s more opportunity to get an education than there was then."
Today the Cantrell household has four televisions, three cell phones and five computers, along with cable television and six vehicles.
"With 2 percent a year, even over a 36-year period, the average person’s well-being doubles — and that’s their well-being and taking inflation out of the picture," Scott said. "Whenever you take inflation out of it and you just look at this economic well-being, it does not look like a roller coaster. It does not look like, ‘Oh goodness, we were up then and down then.’ It doesn’t look like a bunch of hills to go over, it looks like one big mountain that we are going up."
And that big mountain that we are climbing as a country will keep going up — albeit slowly.
"There are some things that have drastically changed in the past year," Scott said. "To get the level of deficits that we are at now in terms of the national economy we’ve got to go back to the 1940s ... and also the money supply. We have never seen any kind of growth in the money supply like this except maybe in the Civil War."
And there’s always a delay between when a slump in the economy ends and everyone starts to realize it.
"The recession ended whenever we had the uptick, but you don’t know it until after July, August, September," he said. "You learned that we were out (of the recession) at the beginning of November. You always learn about four months later you are out."
Time will tell if the economic recovery will last — and if the next generations will grow up with even more cars, cell phones and TVs.
Scott is optimistically doubtful.
"You have just government spending more money and ... our dollar is cheap so that means our goods are cheap for foreigners to buy and so we have a lot of exports," he said. "When you take those things out I don’t think you have anything that is going to last."