From: joetaxpayer 
Newsgroups: misc.invest.financial-plan
Subject: Re: Real Estate vs. Stocks
Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 17:00:50 -0500
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	=UtbQ



Elle wrote:

> Seems like your figures of $7.43/hour for 1981 and 
> $16.11/hour for 2005 are averages that do not take into 
> account an occasionally dangerously large gap in wages 
> between blue collar and white collar. E.g. over some time 
> periods white collar wages might shoot up by a factor of 
> five, while blue collar wages go up by a factor of two. Yet 
> most folks are blue collar, right? (Roughly speaking for 
> purposes of posting, and since only about 21% of the age 
> eligible population have a bachelor's degree.) So housing 
> affordability measures must weight the high presence of blue 
> collar wages accordingly. 

I'm unable to recover the original data I used when I wrote that page, 
but keep in mind, CPI grew by a factor of 2.281 over this period, so the 
$7.43 would inflate to $16.94. During this period, wages didn't even 
keep up with inflation, yet the 'hours per months' needed to pay for the 
house still declined. I believe my original data was factory wages, I 
tried to eliminate the objection you now raise, but again, my original 
data set is not at my fingertips. (If you can provide a link to compare 
1981 income to 2005 income, I'd be much obliged, and I'd update the page 
to reflect annual income or median, however it's presented.)
JOE