Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 33

yi ITT Herald Review Tl Decatur, Illinois, Sunday, September 20, 1987 How far have we come in 20 years? By DAVID O'REILLY Knight-Rldder News Service PHILADELPHIA Once upon a time there was a land where three-bedroom houses cost $17,000. A new Oldsmobile cost $2,499, and a 5-ounce tube of Crest toothpaste was just 39 cents. This idyllic kingdom was, of course, the United States, and the once-upon-a-time was not so long ago 19S7. It was a rocky year in modern American history but an era when the prices of houses and shoes and food seemed reasonable by today's standards. Sirloin steaks were 84 cents a pound, and milk was 25 cents a quart.

A Hershey bar was still a nickel (a nickel! and coffee was 63 cents a pound. Sigh. For 17 years, 1967 has been the base year by which the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics has measured inflation, and during that time America has experienced some of the worst inflation in its history (especially in the late 70s). Using '67 as its base, the bureau has confirmed, using weighted sub-indexes and logarithms and decimal points, what most of us have felt in our wallets: The items that cost $10 in '67 now cost, on average, $34. Paychecks have grown, too, of course, and with two breadwinners, many families are enjoying earning power far greater than that of single-wage-earner families of two decades ago.

But 1967 is becoming less useful as a comparison year for measuring inflation, according to the BLS. After two decades of sometimes galloping inflation, "the numbers start to get unwieldy" for the layman, says George Scott, regional economist for the bureau's Philadelphia office. So in January the bureau will drop 1967 and start using a 1981-83 base for measuring future inflation. "Besides, said Scott, "most people cant remember what things cost in 1967." Herald Review file photos In 1967, Main Street looks like this looking south from the corner of North and Main, and there's an afternoon paper on the street. 'Twas a fine time to buy a house classified ads in local newspapers list clerks' sala- pays $125 a week, "plus commissions." Seamstress ries at $70 to $85 a week; a dental hygienist's job jobs go for $65 to $80 a week.

va ''-ski'' Mr I -w-'-y Homes that today sell for $100,000 to $150,000 are bringing $17,490, $23,930 and $15,090 in 1967. A five-bedroom house on three-fourths acre in the suburbs is in the "upper 30s" and interest rates are 6 percent A 17-acre "showplace estate" (it includes a nine-room house with marble floors, cathedral ceilings and a 50-foot swimming pool) sells for $125,000. Houses in Levittown, are being advertised for $150 down and $50 a month. Today many Americans are willing to pay for cars what they paid for houses 20 years ago. In 1967, though, new Volkswagens are being advertised for $1,497, a Plymouth Valiant is $2,281 and a Cadillac convertible de Ville is $6,700.

After Dad drives home from work he might have a martini (a fifth of Gilbey's gin is $3.05) or a beer (a six-pack is about 79 cents). Then he might join his family for a dinner of sirloin steak, at 89 cents a pound, and potatoes, at 8 cents a pound. Swordfish steaks are 65 cents a pound, slab bacon 59 cents. Lemons are 4 cents apiece, and an 8-ounce package of cream cheese is 29 cents. After dinner, when they all gather 'round to watch "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or "The Beverly Hillbillies," few Americans in 1967 can tell the true colors of Rob and Laura Petrie's living room or Granny's gingham dresses.

At $400, color TVs are a luxury, and only about 20 percent of households have them in 1967. Black-and-white sets, on the other hand, typically cost between $79 and $119. Televisions, in fact, cost about what they cost today. Today, of course, we pay in yen. Unfortunately, all the "bargain" prices we encounter here in 1967 make sense only when we compare them with typical salaries and wages.

The For 17 years, 1967 has been the base year by which the inflation was measured in America 11111 "jf C''l In 1967, $15,000 is a fair price for this home In mid-America. Minis make their entrance in 1967. Kids' shoes cost $9.99 5 ,4 1 rv- i I Innocence gets left behind us America In 1967 Is In a state of turmoil. The newly blossomed flower children are calling It the "summer of love," but the nation is bitterly divided over the Vietnam war, and some college students are burning draft cards and even American flags In angry protest. Blacks are even angrier, and set Are during riots to the ghettos of los Angeles, Detroit and Newark, NJ.

some Americans are blithely Indifferent to the anger and protest, of course, but that doesn't mean they are Indifferent to social Issues. One reader writes to a newspaper columnist asking, for example, "What Is the correct way to drink a cocktail when the cherry or orange slice is on a toothpick or tiny sword and lying across the Mm of the glass?" 'leave the fruit on the toothpick and put the whole thing Into the drink," replies etiquette acMser Elizabeth Post Mrs. (definitely not Post's genteel readers can buy steel garden rakes for $1.99, Singer sewing machines for $88 and men's gray flannel suits oxfords for boys (a bargain at $6.97, although they are a bit nerdy). For $6 we can pick up boys "no ironing" jeans made of Koratron. Boys cotton briefs haven't changed, except that in 1967 they come only in white and don't feature Calvin Klein on the waistband or Spider Man on the rump.

A three-pack is $2.35, and kids who insist on displaying their favorite TV characters carry lunch boxes bearing the likenesses of Flipper or the Rat Patrol. They are $2.19, and they come with a matching thermos jug. Bold plaids are the look on girls in '67 (that's what all women are called here in '67), and school-age girls can get green plaid, A-line miniskirts at Gimbels for $8. The look isn't complete without go-go boots, though, and Gimbels is selling thigh-high "patent vinyl" go-go boots for $18. Today a dollar buys half of what it bought in 1975 What did things cost in 1967? Perhaps it's time to pay a farewell visit to that magic base year, to stroll its supermarket aisles and department stores, looking at advertised prices and imagining what our 1987 paychecks could buy back then.

Care to come along? The bus ride back to '67 will cost us $3.75. In those days, that was the cost of the 100-mile ride The annual average worker in 1 967 earned $2.68 an hour, worked 38 hours a week and earned $101 .84 before taxes. That same worker earns $8.91 an hour now. but in constant dollars both get paid $4.86. from New York to Philadelphia, which today costs $18.50.

Regular gasoline then was 34 cents a gallon, adjusted for inflation, about what we pay for a gallon today. On our arrival, we'll see movie marquees for "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde" and "A Man for All Seasons.1' At $1.50 a ticket they might be tempting, but by now we've seen them on TV, or on our VCRs, haven't we? Some jewelers are advertising bargain, one-carat diamond rings for $385, $295 and $224 as we arrive. But perhaps we ought to think of the kids first We could get them a Royal portable typewriter for $39, although it doesn't say how many megabytes of memory it has, and (how strange!) it doesn't even seem to have a plug. Youngsters aren't carrying boom-box radios or Walkmans here; they carry pocket-size transistor radios that emit tinny sounds, as if mice are singing inside, and are priced at Sears isn't peddling $55 Fila and Reebok running shoes for kids. In 1967, children are going to high school in $10 penny loafers, or non-leather, "scuff-resistant The good old days? Not for everyone for the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper" album and Jimi Hendrlx's "Are You each of which costs $2.35.

(with three buttons and short, narrow lapels that meet at the breastbone) for $69.95. Their kids, meanwhile, are lining up We haven't all come at the same pace "we" are better off than we were two decades ago gets quickly bogged down in some core questions. Who are the "we?" Urban blacks? Suburban whites? Single, parents? Texas oil workers? Migrant: farm workers? It may be true that pro-' fessional families with two wage earners can afford VCRs and Volvos. But if children in $55 Reeboks come home to an delphia lawyers are probably better off," Danziger remarked, laughing. "But Iowa farmers? Michigan autoworkers?" The economy of New England is up, but the states of Texas, Louisiana and klahama are in a recession, he said.

If you were on a fixed income, or earning minimum wage, or earning union wages nailed down by a long-term contract, you watched your buying power drop dramatically in the early 70s and then again later in that decade: down 6.8 percent in 77, down 9 percent in '78, down 13.3 percent in '79, down 12.4 percent more in '80 and down 8.9 percent more in 81. $2.68 an hour, worked 38 hours a week and earned $101.84 before taxes. That same worker earns $8.91 an hour now. The difference appears dramatic, but in constant dollars the pay is virtually the same: In 1977 dollars, both wages are $4.86, says the bureau's Scott But Sheldon Danziger, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin and an expert on income distribution, says there are too many groups, and too many surges and recessions, and too many sectors of the American economy to permit one simple assessment of how "we all did. "I would say stockbrokers and Phila Today a dollar buys half of what it bought in 1975 and not much more than what a Quarter bought 20 years ago.

In a paper prepared last year for the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Danziger and colleague Peter Gottschalk reported that between 1967 and 1973, real income grew for every type of family, including one-parent families headed by women. But between 1973 and and 1984 it dropped from 3.1 percent to 13.3 percent, depending on the category, except for two-parent black families, whose income rose almost 4 percent Any attempt to determine whether Are we better off than we were 20 years ago? All the coniparhig of prices, of wages and salaries, ot improvements in consumer products and social consciousness, boils down to that pressing, thorny question. Some economists answer yes, of course we are. Some say no, we aren't, and some wonder who "Ve" are. In a nation as large and diverse as America, not all regions or groups have progressed at the same rate.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual average non-agricultural production worker 1967 earned empty bouse, what does better off" mean? Says Michael Weinstein, chairman of the economics department at Haverford College: "There are no unambiguous an swers..