Valley of the Dolls describes events starting in 1945. What could a Manhattan resident expect to pay and earn back then?
“I can start you at seventy-five a week — how does that set with you?” It was more than she had expected. Her room cost eighteen, food about fifteen. She told him she could manage quite well.
In other words, rent for a room in a shared apartment was 24 percent of income for a fresh-out-of-college assistant. Note that food is nearly as expensive as rent. She would earn $3,900 per year, $52,000 in today’s mini-dollars.
How about a semi-swank one-bedroom apartment in a city crammed with people returning from World War II?
“Anne will come up with something,” Henry insisted. “Try for the East Side. Living room, bedroom, bath and kitchen, furnished, around a hundred and fifty a month. Go to one-seventy-five if you have to. Start in right away, this afternoon. Take tomorrow off, take as long as you need . . . but don’t come back until you have the apartment.”
The BLS CPI calculation says that $175 in 1945 is comparable to $2,333 today.
A rich person is described in the book as a “millionaire”.
The government’s inflation statistics are unreliable, since the government obviously has considerable motive to lie about inflation to hide how much money they steal from us by inflating the dollar. For an accurate comparison, consider the prices of gold in 1945 ($37.25 at the end of the year) and today ($1237.60). That tells us that the actual modern equivalent to $175 in 1945 dollars is $5,814.70–two and a half times what the government would like us to believe.
Billionaire is the new millionaire.
@Ken Gold price was fixed at $35 an ounce back then. That ended by Nixon’s executive order in 1971. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock
Leave out rent and food, in 1945, you didn’t have extra “side” expenses such as cable TV, internet, cell phone, app subscription, car payment, insurance, etc. Today, the cost of having those extra expenses alone can reach your weekly food cost.