Letters

From the March 1996 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

The authors state that working women make families better off. Even aside from the love which can only be provided by a mother, freshman-level economics proves this to be false. The law of supply and demand as it pertains to labor is clear: Women entering the work force have increased the supply of workers while the demand lags far behind, causing wages to fall and unemployment to rise. How is this good for families?

Secondly, those families that have benefited have caused an increase in demand for goods while supply lags behind, causing goods to become more expensive. This has priced many families, especially those who allow mom to perform her God-given function, out of the market for many goods they should otherwise be able to have. And this is good for families? Of course, as the authors pointed out, recent history has been good for restaurants; it has just been a net loss for families.

Timothy M. Barrett
Virginia Beach, VA
[e-mail]

Authors Cox and Alm don't make a very convincing case in their December article. In the first place, they ignored the cost of a mortgage. In the mid-'60s my wife and I purchased our first home with a 3.25 percent mortgage. Today only the fortunate few get by for less than double that rate, and most pay triple.

In those days I would pay Social Security tax until September or October and pocket that amount for the remainder of the year. This was on a teacher's pay, no less. How many inexperienced teachers earn in excess of the $59,000 earnings cap today? The first two new automobiles I bought didn't have the extra cost of seat belts, airbags, and catalytic converters factored into the price. In 1970 we bought a small nine-year-old airplane for $3,000. Today a similar airplane, if you could find one, would cost more like $35,000; approximately 11.6 times as much. Product liability awards have driven the cost of general aviation aircraft, even used ones, out of reach of all but the well-to-do. Teachers' salaries have not multiplied by a factor of 11.6 since 1970.

The increased costs of borrowing money, government regulations, rampant litigation, and Social Security were ignored in the article. Sorry, guys, but when I look back on the '60s as the "good old days," there's more involved than just nostalgia.

Gary Yocum
Marshalltown, IA
[e-mail]

In "The Good Old Days Are Now," the authors grossly misrepresent the arguments they claim to attack and display both slippery analytical techniques and an unfamiliarity with bipartisan public policies.

Nobody claims that all Americans are worse off than before, that all families can survive only if two adults are working, or that the United States is generally worse off than other industrial countries. The most prominent argument is that the income gap between high-paid and low-paid workers is greater in the United States than in other industrial countries, and that the gap has been widening. Cox and Alm indicate as much by their initial reference to the steady decline in average hourly wages since 1978.

They dismiss such data by emphasizing per capita income for all Americans, and by pointing to the absence of fringe benefits from hourly wage data. Surely they know that averages do not accurately outline the gaps between groups, and that all sorts of fringe benefits are rapidly disappearing.

Almost shockingly, they seem unaware of the bipartisan policy to maintain about a 6 percent unemployment rate to control inflation by depressing wages, thereby making it very difficult for young people to get full-time jobs at decent wages. Obviously, decisions to delay marriage or not marry at all are not necessarily voluntary, as Cox and Alm prefer to suggest.

They do provide laughs here and there, and we should thank them. Yes, there are indeed more VCRs in the country than in previous decades. There also were more radios in the 1930s than in the 1920s. Perhaps they believe that the Great Depression was imaginary.

Frederick C. Thayer
Visiting Professor
Department of Public Administration
The George Washington University
Washington, DC

W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm reply: David Brown has "serious" doubts about our facts and figures. Every statistic cited in our article came from a public source, easily available in most libraries. Overwhelmingly, the data came from various government agencies and The Statistical Abstract of the United States. That's true of our numbers on work hours. The U.S. Department of Labor tells us that Americans, on average, are working less. It strives to remain consistent over time and reduce any biases. Why do so many people find it hard to believe Americans work less? Our guess is they're generalizing from a few observations, or maybe from themselves. The baby boom generation has entered the 45-54-year-old age category--the period of life during which people typically work hardest and longest. So many of us today are perhaps looking back on the carefree days of youth. But that's not the correct perspective to use for comparison. The correct perspective is our lifetime compared to that of our parents and grandparents. Surely, few would doubt that they worked harder than us.

A few modern-day gadgets might seem trivial to some people. That's a value judgment that cannot be tested in any way. One man's triviality might be another's highest blessing. Try telling an opera buff that the clarity of sound on a compact disc isn't a great gain for mankind. Even we have trouble with the social value of video games, but on the whole technology has made life more pleasurable, less burdensome, and cheaper. Today, you can watch a $48 million motion picture such as Jurassic Park in your living room for $2.00. Having seen the hard lives of our parents and grandparents, we do not agree that the machines of modern life are trivial. In addition, our list of advancements included organ transplants, computers, lifesaving airbags and antilock brakes, and a host of other inventions that certainly can't be dismissed as trivial.

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