The time needed to get $1 in international dollars is 63 minutes in the US. This is about twice the average in Germany, France and the UK according to an Oxford University researcher. This suggests that average poverty is significantly higher in the US.
Where did I say they weren’t paying rent?
“Supporting yourself” implies an entire household. A place to live, food on the table, clothes, and miscellaneous expenses.
And by ‘part-time waitress’ I meant someone working at a regular diner/restaurant. I’m sure there are people working high end strip clubs who bring home thousands in tips.
Even if the young couple is living in a parent’s house they’d be hard pressed.
Finally, stevedore in the 1970’s meant a laborer unloading ships by hand. Maybe today it means someone operating a crane, but back in the day it was not some high tech/high pay job.
I said it is mainly a rent issue, and not an income or general price level issue. Yes two people on a single part-time income (living rent free) in a low income sector isn’t easy, but it wasn’t easy in the 1970ties either.
As for the other example. This still exists. I know people working as scuba divers on oil rigs that work 1-2 months a year only. This isn’t a very highly skilled job and mostly involves manual labor, but it is difficult to find jobs like that these days, which was probably easier in the 1970ties due to various factors that are not directly related to income or poverty levels.
First, scuba diver on an oil rig is a skilled job. Highly skilled.
Commercial divers must have completed a diver training program through an Association of Diving Contractors International, Inc.-accredited commercial diving technical institute or military program. Diver training programs often teach students both how to dive underwater with oxygen supplied from the surface or scuba diving equipment and how to perform construction work underwater, such as welding and rigging, as well as first aid and other skills.
Many employers require commercial divers to have an Occupational Safety and Health Administration-compliant commercial diver certification. The Association of Diving Contractors International, Inc., or the International Marine Contractors Association, offers certifications in various different diving tasks and specializations.
Commercial divers generally start as entry-level tender divers and, with experience, hours of dive time, and additional certifications, can advance to work on more complex projects and receive greater compensation.
US government publication.
I did a quick search. In 1970 the Rolling Stones did a concert in Toronto. Ticket prices were $8.00, well within reach of our waitress.
2026 tickets are $150.00.
It is a job with a lot of bureocratic red tape, but the work they actually do does not require years of study and deep understanding of a specific subject.
They also don’t earn exceptionally well. The reason they can do that is because it is largely gig work that can be done 1-2 months a year easily.
Also you can’t compare tickets prices of a classic band that largely caters to now well off boomers with what they charged in the 1970ties.
The $8 with inflation and all that comes to approximatly $25-30 or so in 2026 dollars, which is similar to what an entry ticket to a concert of a lesser known band costs these days. And as an occasional treat that is still affordable for low income people.
Oil rig divers need training in industrial scuba diving and underwater welding. That are two specialized skills, both usually requiring some years of training. That’s not bureaucratic red tape, you simply can’t do the job if you don’t know how to weld underwater and are going to die if you have no industrial diving skills. This is part of the reason why they are well paid. It’s a very bad example for the discussion.
I didn’t say that it is an unskilled job. But once you have the necessary certifications (which don’t take years, although you can get additional certifications over the years while doing the job), it is a risky but not especially complex job. The payment is according: good for a job like that, but not crazy level money.
And anyways, the point was that “regular workers” jobs still exists that allow you to only work a few months a year, but they have become more rare and hard to get, partially because of bureaucratic red tape.
It’s entirely missing the point because offshore scuba diving is highly skilled specialized labour. It doesn’t matter whether it’s not very complex work when you get down to it. You need years to even get access to it and it has always been like this. The “bureaucratic red tape” has only been added so that the employers can acutually assess the skill of the people they hire. It’s a field where mistakes are very, very expensive.
Maybe you’ll understand what’s wrong with your example when I present you an equally bad example: I know a guy who works two months and then spends three months scuba diving in Egypt. He’s a doctor.
Look, you don’t need to explain the details to me, as I am a scuba diver myself and have seriously considered getting into commercial diving 10-15 years ago. Hence me knowing some people that actually do this.
As I said, it is difficult to get into it and there is a lot of certificates you need to do, but at the end of the day it isn’t super difficult to do and the job itself is mainly relatively well paid because there is a certain risk involved and you spend a lot of time away from home often even cramped into small submersible habitats.
A doctor is a very bad example indeed, because most doctors have fixed jobs they can’t easily leave for longer time periods.
The Stones were the top band in the world in 1970. Comparable with Taylor Swift today.
Not some indie group.
Not really. They were well known, yes. But they didn’t have a well off fan base that could afford higher ticket prices and thus the tickets were priced accordingly.
The Taylor Swift example rather shows that there are more (somewhat) young people that can afford high ticket prices these days.
Also: I was extremely conservative with the inflation adjustment. You could probably equally well argue that $8 in 1970 is more like $60 today, as the basket to calculate inflation changed very unequally and services generally inflated much more than goods.
I love watching people use all their intelligence to ignore basic facts.
I did a quick search and the Stones came in number 3. Top band was Led Zepplin.
Tickets to Zepplin were $6.00
That completely ignores my argument.
Rock and Roll music was not something well off elderly people went to concerts in the 1970ties.
I don’t know how old people got involved in this argument.
We’re talking about the part-time waitress and her boyfriend.
In 1970, they could afford to go to a big concert.
In 2026, they can’t.
I don’t know why this is such a hard concept for you to grasp.