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You Call This a Good Economy 这能称之为上佳经验 You have to have lived in the 1950s and 1960s to have experienced a good economy. In the period between 1950 and 1970 it was the rulerather than the exceptionthat an ordinary family, without higher education, could sustain itself decently on the income of a single breadwinner(养家糊口的人). In 1955, when I was 19 and living in Brooklyn, N. Y., my father, who had a sixth-grade education, maintained our family of five on a wage of $82 a week as a bookbinder. My mother taught us fairness and compassion; my father, discipline and enterprise. The U. S. economy in those years was good. Then where did this good economy go? It was inflated away. The price of gold, which I take as proxy for the prices of all goods, was $35 an ounce in those years. It is at roughly ten times that price today. There is another answer, though: inflation caused the entire work force to be moved into higher tax groups, thus reducing after-tax purchasing power. That is, my fathers bindery job in1954 paid $82 a week, with $80 after deductions; today, at $ 820 per week the net would be $662. To ordinary people, the economy doesnt look very good at all. After-tax incomes continue to decrease in purchasing power. The jobs offered in the employment ads pay only a little more than the minimum wage, maybe $5 an hour, which, after payroll deductions, yields $4 an hour. Compare that with minimum-wage jobs of the early 1950s, when 75 cents was worth todays $7.50 before and after taxes. | 
