The Economy: What Good Old Days?

It is customary, particularly among unions seeking wage hikes, to talk nostalgically of the good old days when earnings were low but so were prices, and a working man could live more comfortably on less money. There is only one trouble with the reasoning: it isn't so—and the authority is none other than the Machinist, publication of the International Association of Machinists, A.F.L.-C.I.O. Since 1938, says the Machinist, living costs have doubled, but factory wages have nearly quadrupled. And, comparing the number of factory working hours required in 1948 and 1961 to purchase 27 different items, only two showed...