As U.S. citizens feel the burden of higher priced goods at the grocery store they also look towards the future and retirement with worry. Many of us have heard the joke that our grandparents bought their house for $10 or they washed dishes for a couple of nights and bought a new car. People today struggle with affording a place to live or a reliable form of transportation and it has been said “Just work harder,” but is that really the solution?
Going back to 1970, according to the U.S. census the average individual income was $9,870. Now let's look at the price of a car and the price of a house. The Transportation Energy Data Book states that the average new car cost $3,543. This equates to about 36% of the annual income. Yahoo Finance tells us that buying a house in 1970 would set you back $26,600, working out to 2.7 times the average annual income. How will this look compared to the 2024 data?
Firstly Forbes says that the average income in 2024 is $59,428. If you wanted to get a new car on average it would cost $49,929, which is 84% of the average annual income. Home prices in 2024 are at an average of $426,900 a whopping 7.2 times what the average American is making a year.
It is no secret that life has been getting more expensive. And it does not help when the solution given is “work harder.” This might not mean working harder building houses or mowing the lawn, but working to undo mistakes from the past to ensure future generations do not have to have crushing wealth worries.
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