Shocking 1947 Grocery Prices! | INFLATION now Vs 1947

[@EricaCalman]

Yeah, the late 40s were also just a super weird time in general because everybody was incredibly glad that the war was over (although plenty of people were still grieving lost loved ones and/or dealing with PTSD) but it took a couple of years to transition everything back from a wartime economy and society to a peacetime one. There was actually a brief recession in 1946, although it was mostly on paper since there was plenty of economic momentum but weapons and other things made for war do have a dollar value so when you stop making them the total GDP does technically go down. Wartime rationing also ended and now everybody was ready to live normally again, plus they had income unlike in the years prior to WWII during the depression so demand surged and everybody was confident that the factories could be converted back to making consumer goods but again it took a while. A huge number of technological innovations developed in the decades prior and accelerated by the war helped out quite a lot, but things were still relatively scarce and expensive well into the early 50s, and that was just in America where unlike Europe and Asia everything hadn't been blown the smithereens. Anyways pretty cool story emblematic of the time, thanks for sharing!

[@historyandhearsay]

Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun researching this & imagining what like must have been like for them! It also gave me a great perspective for why the 50’s are looked at with such nostalgia! I think people were (like you said) so happy to be able to just live “normal lives” and that brought a lot of contentment & love for life!

[@debbiejansen555]

I wish I could spend $12.50/week instead of $150-$175!! Praying for the "right" change in government to help us get out of this mess! 😀

[@historyandhearsay]

Yes! Me too!! 🙏🏻😆

[@historyandhearsay]

Of course they don't! But the decisions they make effect us greatly and some do make better decisions then others. Though I agree that most are corrupt on both sides! It's a mess really! But we always think that someone else has to be better than one that is truly senile @@DannyWildmen

[@Lil.pepsimax]

I loved this thank you. I'm only 20 and I can truly understand this lol. Some things in life are taken for granted too often.

[@historyandhearsay]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it, you must be an old soul :) it’s so true!

[@aprilknerr4443]

So interesting. I always thought we had higher grocery prices. Must have been trying to recoup from the war. I agree...some feel luxuries are necessities. I have fallen into that trap before. Trying not to this year.

[@historyandhearsay]

Yes! Same here!

[@westzed23]

One point that is important to note, is that converting past prices to todays prices is not exact. As you said it is like comparing apples and oranges. Of course, prices varied for location. When you stated that some families were spending up to 60% of their pay on groceries, I think that this comparison is better at reflecting then unto today. Mrs. Hamilton probably walked to the store or took a bus. Or she shopped when her husband could drive her. I grew up in the 50s and 60s in a family of seven. Dad had to take Mom because there was a lot of groceries. We usually had two carts full to check out, and we also got milk delivery so that was separate like Mrs. Hamilton. I don't know what prices were then but when a price went up, it was noted because I do remember that butter went up to 60 cents a pound. We always had enough food and big Sunday meal leftovers were important. My parents lived through the depression so they would use what they learned then to stretch meals out. I was taught that housing should be about one third of your income, and food was 25% to 30%. Of course those numbers do not reflect today.

[@historyandhearsay]

Such good points! My parents had 12 children! Their parents lived through the Great Depression & I do think my they learned a lot about being resourceful, being raised by my grandparents. I do remember that we only ever had 1 grocery basket full of food, but I would see other families with 2-4 kids who had 2 baskets full every week. I know my dad only made $20/week in the 70’s or 80’s. (With my older siblings) But once I was old enough to understand money as a kid in in the 90’s I remember that my mom spent $100 max each week & that so many other families thought it was impossible, but her cart only had the essentials & she made everything from scratch. She also supplemented beans for meat protein most days. Resourcefulness goes very far in any decade!💕 thank you so much for watching & the thoughtful comment!!

[@westzed23]

@@historyandhearsay We were just on the edge of being a large family with 5 kids. I don't know what my father made, but I knew we weren't the richest in the suburb. We always had food, but my Dad drove a company car and we never had big family vacations. My older sister and I felt sorry for my parents when the older kids would stay with different relatives during summer, and they didn't get to come. Now I know they had a quieter house with just the two youngest and my Dad home because he often had to travel for work. I can picture my Mom sighing as we were farmed out for our summer fun.

[@historyandhearsay]

@@westzed23 haha! I bet she did! Yes, 5 would be considered a big family by most standards today especially. Such good memories! Yeah we would probably have been classified as poor, but we didn’t know any different! 🤷🏻‍♀️ I never felt that way as a kid, which tells you mom & dad did a good job! :) our vacations were going tent camping, which again as a kid I didn’t realize was because of money. We had a blast! We didn’t know any different! Looking back as an adult, I’m surprised how much my parents did with on a single blue collar salary. My dad traveled at times but we were homeschooled & he would bring us with him when he could :) A bunch of us where born in different states 😆 By the time I was a teen was probably when he was able to stop traveling - he would just follow the work - if work was slow, he would go find it.

[@cobrafan1403]

I assure you that their housing and utility costs were substantially lower than they would be in modern times

[@historyandhearsay]

The house is pretty close, when you average it out by square footage - I’m not sure about the utilities but most of the “extras” we have now that we often see as “essential” were just NOT an option then (even if it had existed) - smart phones with data plans, internet, etc We have a lot more “bills” mostly do to life choices

[@rachelvicario6675]

Great story. It is interesting to see how others perceived pricing of items in their era and how it was handled when prices went up. I can see how some would take offense to that article. Even the way it was worded kind of made it come across as sarcastic a bit. 😂 I also agree, some people do take some things that we used to consider extras or as luxury and classify them as necessity. My husband and I definitely still cut back on buying certain items or planning a vacation, etc. when we feel that too much money is going out or we know a bigger household maintenance expense is coming. Those are the things we consider into our budget when we plan for our future.

[@historyandhearsay]

I think the way it was written WAS a bit condescending to everyone else haha! And yes! So true! We just have to take responsibility for what we CAN control to make it work out. And be grateful that we CAN do something about it, unlike many in other countries.

[@kaseyharless6324]

Inflation definitely at its worst

[@historyandhearsay]

@@kaseyharless6324 it’s SO BAD right now 🙈 feels like we have skipped ahead 10 years on costs!

[@Excitingnoise93]

To be fair these are v similar to Aussie prices

[@historyandhearsay]

Yes, I’ve heard it’s much more expensive there than the states (just normally)

[@ilyamoz]

it's quite naive to compare only food prices. rents for example were not taking 80% of salary and it was post-WW2 times (there was literally global war 2 years before).

[@historyandhearsay]

Cost for square footage was relatively the same - from numbers I saw. I would ASSUME utilities were much cheaper, but I don’t know where to look that up - obviously this is a HUGE topic & we only covered a small part of it, of course we did not get to everything. But I can assure you, that the average American today has WAY more “non-essential” bills then back then - but those are in fact not essential to live, though we may “feel” like they are & the way things are set up, they feel more & more essential but at the end of the day, they are luxuries, things like smart phones, internet, vacations, etc So the point I guess I am making is that while our bills are higher for sure, but a lot of those bills are things we chose to have. I 100% agree that house has skyrocketed recently. But I still don’t think people realize how expensive life was for people during other times in history as well & want to just moan about current life & romanticize the past, when people worked a lot harder, for a lot less (just in general)

[@ilyamoz]

@@historyandhearsay fair points, but don't we were told we have a "progress" or whatever they decide to call it nowadays? I mean, I think it's worth looking on the amount of resources that is available and how they are distributed. Putting all blame on "smartphones" (good luck living without one) and common ppl is a bit reductive approach. I haven't seen this kind of gap between the richest and a "common" man since great depression times. In my opinion this lens is a bit more useful in context of the discussion.

[@historyandhearsay]

MAN! I just typed a HUGE response and then clicked a next to the reply (instead of directly on it) and it deleted the whole thing! ahhh I hate that lol But in a nutshell what I was saying was that I agree, things are REALLY bad in the economy right now, due to the current administration and decades worth of government OVER spending and sending our money to other countries WHILE ignoring the American people, our veterans who need help, etc. BUT as an individual we cant change much of that, of course we can vote for the right people and try to change things that way, but it still takes time. But personal responsibility can help in the immediate for those struggling financially - WE didnt make this mess, but we can cut back where we can AND we have WAY more opportunities to make money in uniwue ways that were available "back in the day" So my message is to encourage peolpe not to throw up their hands, but to look at what they can do to change their personal situation where they can. Living without a smart phone would make things harder - but not impossible - like going without food. (I know people who have gotten rid of their smart phones) Personally I don't know how I would find where I was going without mine haha (just moved across the country) My perspective comes from having friends who spend $200 on their hair, $100 on their nails but then call me crying that they cant pay their bills OR crying about how every day expenses keep going up - I can sympathize to an extent but they lose me when I know they only make $14/hour and chose to go and and buy $1500 hand bags, ya know? Anyways, not trying to go on a rant, just wanting to explain where I am coming from - not blaming the hard times on the every day person - just trying to encourage the every day person to focus on what they can control and not get discouraged and give up. @@ilyamoz

[@VintageLPs]

@@historyandhearsayYou and I think alike! I was a single mother by the time my son was six years old. I was a bank teller and took my son with me in the evenings to clean houses. I used the adding machine at work to run a tape showing my monthly expenses, stuck to a budget and put money away for my son’s college education. He took advantage of the G.I. Bill in the Air Force and between that and what I had saved, he graduated from the university owing zero dollars. My monthly cost for our health insurance was $4 through the bank! Now it costs me at least $800 per month just for myself. I’ve never had a smart phone so it is $20 a month for unlimited landlines through Spectrum Cable (I have 8 telephones in my 4-level house) and about the same for WiFi for my laptop and iPad. I spend $100 per year for my Tracfone plan and they gave me the flip phone for free. This sits in the bottom of my purse in order to call AAA when one of my cars breaks down. No one has that phone number. I drive a ‘97 Toyota RAV4 (my late husband’s) and a 1999 Chev Malibu with only 43,000 miles on it. Both cars are considered antiques in Montana so they have permanent license plates that cost me nothing each year. Nothing! I haven’t watched a television set in several years so I am going to cancel my cable t.v. I used to watch one cable channel via my iPad but their app no longer works so I am cutting the cord. I’m praying for a new administration because I am prolife and I want those borders CLOSED. P.S. You do great work on your channel. I read and then listened to the audiobook The Radium Girls and you did an excellent job on that vlog. What a terrible death those women suffered at the hands of unscrupulous, greedy men.

[@LalaLillith]

Joke of an administration?

[@historyandhearsay]

Yes!

[@rnthamilton]

I have been binge watching this channel since I found it. Totally loved it in spite of the bad editing and misprounciations. I'm sad that political opinion was brought in. Now, to find a history channel that leaves out their uneducated political opinion.

[@msoda8516]

I enjoyed you video until you comment blaming the current administration for all inflation. You do realize that inflation is a global issue, that America actually has lower inflation rates than other comparable countries. Also just like the inflation in the 40’s was caused by global events so is our current inflation. We experienced a once in a 100 year global pandemic which is going to cause issues. There are plenty of thing to criticize the Biden administration for such as not doing enough to prevent corporate price gouging just as there are things to blame the Trump administration for such as its horrible handling of the pandemic. Blaming a single presidential administration in what is a complex global issue will do nothing. We would be better served to have an honest discussion on different causes and how they can be fixed. The danger in not doing so is it makes people think this complex issue can be solved with things like massive tariffs on everything the literal caused the great depression.

[@historyandhearsay]

@@msoda8516 yes, it’s not a “simple” solution, but we have had many “single administrations” over our years as a country, that can be pinpointed for making things worse with 1 or 2 terms. When things get worse SO quickly, it can be directly linked to that current administration’s policies - including where they are spending money - which is a huge issue at this very moment, holding on to hope that it gets better! 🤞🏻 Our private citizens are currently being told they can’t get disaster relief because they money has been “spent” on foreign countries, if you don’t think that is an issue, we will have to agree to disagree! I see it as a huge issue. thanks for watching!

[@AaronD87]

$30-$40 per week in todays money does sound unbelievable. That would be milk, eggs, bread, some cheese and a pack of ground beef… 🫤

[@historyandhearsay]

yeah, crazy