Heard it today on Planet Money, and I thought it was thought-provoking.
The question is: If you could choose, would you rather have an income of $70,000/year now (and PM defines this as a middle-class income, so adjust based on where you live) or make the same amount of money per year, but live 100 years ago? The adjustment (again as per PM) is about 10X, so it would be the equivalent of making $700,000/year in present time.
So, middle-class in the present, or fantastically wealthy, but living before technology, medicine, travel, etc?
I think if i read it correctly...I think i am a pioneer women reincarnated..dh not so much but i need ideas on how to get him on the same page...so i would have prefered to live 100 years ago with just 7,000 a year income as i think that would have been more than enough....
Life was simpler then. I had a conversation along this line last night with Old Man. When he first moved here he was HAPPY. He had a job at KFC making $7.25, we watched the same movies over and over again and considered finding one at the library a treat. Now, he makes MUCH more than that, our bills have increased significantly and he isn't happy. He thinks the solution is to make MORE money. Making more comes with a price. Something must always be sacrificed... free time, sleep, family, piece of mind. Short of finding a winning lottery ticket on the sidewalk, there is no quick way to riches.
I'm more of a practical person. Yes, I like having virtually every cookbook at my fingertips, but what am I looking up? Recipes of old. A simpler time. Back to basics.
I would have NO problem living a life back then. Most people lived indoors and didn't have to worry about wild animals attacking them :lol:
My first reaction was to be fantastically wealthy, 100 years ago, but after some thought, I decided I'd rather be "middle class" now, and have the benefit of antibiotics, of knowing that if I step on a rusty nail, I won't die of tetanus, having the whole world to explore by way of the internet, and being able to visit my family in a matter of hours, vs. a matter of weeks.
I am old-fashioned in a lot of ways, and the loss of a lot of modern conveniences doesn't bother me. I'd much rather see a play over a t.v. show any day, and if I were wealthy, I'd have that opportunity. But even without taking into account the problems a woman would have trying to be independent in the 1900's, the world was much too small and unyielding back then. I don't think I would be happy living there.
I'd pick the here & now. Besides the modern conveniences I really am thankful how far health care has come.
70k a year, even when dh was working we didn't make near that so we'd live high on the hog.
Modern day with a middle class income. I like indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and not dying in childbirth (because I would have, had I given birth to some of my kids 100 years ago).
In the present. Although I love the old ways, healthcare is the most important to me. I too would have died in childbirth 100 years ago. I have had too many surgeries in my lifetime that were done with advanced techniques. I wouldn't have lived past the age of 12 back then!!
No matter what the income it is spent..Middle class has always had to struggle to keep up..yesterday, today, or tomarrow..everytime mim wage goes up so does the cost of everything..
I would rather be in the today with all the new medical breaks that have come along the past 100 years and yet try to keep some of the 100 year ways to save enough to be comfortable in todays life.
After thinking about this and arguing with myself on different points, I've decided I like my life now. We are already middleclass and though we struggle at times, we always rebound. Heck I probably would have died at birth because I was an 8 1/2 lb. breech baby. I've lost 3 pregnancies and almost lost my son when the cord wrapped around him. I don't think they did any sinus surgeries or treated asthma with success back then. Medical technology far outways the desire to live that simple life back then. I can't imagine having my sinus surgery in a few weeks, way back then.
How about the fact that in 1910 women were still property and had essentially no basic rights? Plus people tend to overlook to negative and romanticize the "good ol days". Anyone with any black, native american, hispanic, jewish, asian or even italian, irish or german blood in their family would be looked down on and considered less than the white protestant guy next door.
No thanks. I'll take my 40K a year that I make in the current time. If you aren't happy about our world, change it!!
I believe that you can make a fortune and still be happy. I believe that you can make very little and still be happy.I would like to have been able to make a fortune before income taxes.It would not be as important to have a wealthy or middle class income back in the day but I sure would rather be poor in these times than back then. Back then there were none of the social programs that we have today for the poor. The poor today are quite wealthy compared to the poor of yesteryears. But I believe that living in the present, whatever time in history that my be, is the best time for me.
In the present........you went back too far for me.
Couldn't handle being a second class citizen due to my sex.......and I wouldn't be making the money............my hubby would ...and I would have been OSTRACIZED for being a "divorcee".......nope! I probably couldn't even handle the 'modes of transportation' back then........
Now........if you went back to about the 1950's or so..........I could go for that.
And......depending on how you define 'simpler' I don't think 100 years ago was necessarily a 'simpler' time........if you mean in the survival mode. Simpler for less 'complex crime' (family values, etc) and etc. but a tough life.
I'll take the ~now~ also! I'd be dead and buried if it wasn't for modern meds. I also agree with the poster who said we are better off NOW at any income level.
So for now I'll thank my maker for chemo treatments, and for now I will just continue to watch Little House on the Prairie for my hour of somehow filling my yearning for living that "pioneer/simpler life"!
Theresa
ps- but anybody who's ever read The Long Winter from the LH book series, knows only too well that those "times" were hardly simpler. :nerv2:
I'd go back in time, but only to about the 60s or 70s, before everyone was tied to cell phones and computers, etc. All the advances in technology were supposed to give us all this leisure time and life was supposed to be less stressful as a result, and I just don't see that happening. Everyone is so stressed and frazzled all the time, much more violence and less treating people with courtesy and respect, less respectful of parents and authority in general....I don't feel we've changed for the better.
Nah, don't see that at all. You think the 60's and 70's didn't have violence? :laugh:
I rather be the desperate housewife now in my shirts with no bra,funky socks, telling my dh how I feel, and have a choice in it all, be excepted in my decision, than how it was before.
And texting is better than sliced bread by far and microwaves. Oh and I did this making only 30k with 3 children.
Yeah, I'm in the now camp. I would have died in childbirth with both of my boys if even a few decades earlier. My oldest would never have made it, he was born dead, brought back and kept alive with modern medicine. My own Mother would not be alive today without it.
Besides, I like my microwave, my washing machine & dryer, air conditioning, Really comfortable shoes, hair dye, Spanx, using the computer for my youngest to go to school, I like the safety features in cars, baby gates, etc.
I don't want to kill and butcher chickens & rabbits if I don't have to. I don't want to have to cook my suppers in outdoor kitchens in the Summer because of the heat, I don't want to have to do what men say because I'm just a woman, boy go back a hundred years and there's a lot I wouldn't like doing. I guess God knew what he was doing putting me in the here and now because I think I'd be pretty miserable (even if I didn't know any better)
I'm another that would have died in childbirth. I now know that many of those who died in the past have the issue I have down there. I soooooooo feel for those poor women of the past. My c-section scar seems like nothing when I think of what they had to endure and how they died.
I'm also thankful for dentistry. I would not have feeling in my mouth had I not had surgery at the right time. I am even thankful for all the skin tags I've had removed.
Then there are the simple things like heat, air, the store, running water, tampons, glasses, internet, digital photos, lights...
Even if I had somehow survived with my asthma and diabetes, I wouldn't have been able to see a darn thing with my legal blindness and I most definitely would have died giving birth to Dd. So, although I am completely fascinated by living in the past, I'll take middle class today.
The here and now. One because I am hearing impaired and rely on technology to hear. Also, my dd would have been born dead or at the least with brain damage when a simple sonogram let us know months in advance I needed a C Section and I wouldn't have had my shots to protect my unborn dds from my 0-blood. Such simple things and yet they live because of them.
Another thing is when dh and I married we only made about $32 thousand. Over the years we have up-ed to $100 thousand. I guess if you averaged it out over the 17 years it evens out.
Middle class now, easily. While things may have been "simpler" back in the day, I highly doubt they were "easier". Besides, I enjoy learning new things, and that wasn't something that quickly happened 100 years ago. If I want to learn something new, now, I just hop on the internet.
Can I have the 70k now??? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE??? That would be awesome.
I would not want to give up the medical and dental luxuries we have now. Medical/dental is one area of history that makes me cringe and sick to my stomach.
Here and now, please. As tough as I like to think I am, I'm not interested in going that far back!
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