Molly Pitcher, the Unibomber, and George Washington >B. Burkart wrote: > >> And salaries such as Molly Pitcher's pension >>($40 per year) would be inadequate today with CPI correction >>to about $400 to $500 per year today would not be adequate >>in today's time period. > jim blair: Hi, Now that is an interesting example. Here is my spin on it. When the US got started as a country, Alexander Hamilton fixed the value of the dollar at $20.67 per ounce of gold. It remained there until changed to $35 by FDR (with a brief break during the Civil War). So in today's money that would be $40x350/20.67 = $677 per year. (Note I ignore the recent drop in gold price this year as a tempory artifact and use the value that has been pretty steady over the past decade) Now most of you will say that Molly Pitcher could not live on $677 per year. But I say she could live today on that $677 if she lived the SAME WAY that she lived on the $40 THEN. Remember the "unibomber guy" (excuse me, the ALLEGED unibomber suspect) Ted Kaczynski? He lived in a shack in the woods doing most of his own things, without all the modern conveniences, and did it for about $400 a year (according to the press reports). He was living the way Polly Pitcher probably lived. > Very interesting way to think about it. The gold idea >seems to work out but that could be part coincidence. We >never did pin down exactly when her pension started. Only >know that she went out with her "pitcher and gave the >soldiers (including her husband) water. Supposedly she got >so used to how things went that she ended up firing the >cannons at times. > Most of the time in the early 1800s the CPI was about >what it was in the 1940s (with ups and downs of course). So >we could assume about 10 times for CPI change. A little more >if it was in the "dip" after the Revolutionary war. The x10 >would bring it to about 400 dollars . I usually think of it >as about $400 to $500 (or even a little more) which is very >close to your number using only gold as a method. > So your Unibomber idea does seem interesting and at >least plausible. Would like to see the equivalent dollars at >least in the $Thousands of dollars level on the one hand. > In any case, if one were to take today's welfare - >SSI, food stamps, St Anthony's kitchen, Armories, Medicaid >etc, it appears plausible that in that case she might even >live even better than she did in 1800 ish. > Some more information on Molly and the Unibomber > MOLLY PITCHER > Some more information derived from two history books but >mostly " George Washington's War" by Leckle 1992-1993 She was the wife of a private John Hayes. Can be found in some books under the name of Molly Pitcher and in other books under the name of Hayes or Mrs John Hayes etc. Her most famous deed was in the battle of Monmoth 1778. She not only "fired the canons", she did the ramming and also received return fire. Was 22 at the time. Her gallantry was awarded with a "Sargents Warrant". Not sure if that was the pension right then and there or if it is something else. We now know the time of the battle and her age which provides a few more rough clues as to "when". Sometime between 1778 and the time people might get their pensions. Would help a lot for our estimates of the 1997 dollar equivalent of her pension if we just knew "when did she get it". >UNIBOMBER > More information on how he lived. .... > His cabin was 10 by 12 ft. Lived in crude conditions and >primitive cabin. The cabin had tar paper roof and a wood >stove. Small platform, bed small table and chair. No >electricity, no running water etc. No sanitary facilities. > > Had flour, sugar, and oil. hunted squirrels and added to >his diet wild plants and onions, carrots, parsnips, and >potatoes that he grew. > He did not wash his daily clothes but did wash the >clothes he went into town with. > And we can sort of confirm Jim Blair's suspicions that >it would not cost much to live the way the Unibomber lived. >Would believe that Molly lived even better than that >(hopefully). Jim, your example seems to be just super as an >analogy.. Hi, Yes this sounds a lot like the way a New Jersey farmer would live during the early 1800's. She may have washed more often, but in many ways she did not live as "well". He had the option of going into town and having access to information (newspapers) on events that happened a day ago on the other side of the world. A local small town library (even in Montana) would have information not available in the best libraries in the world in 1800. His gun for hunting game would be a lot more effective than a muzzle loading flintlock. And if sick, he would get better medical treatment than King George III had. The TP FACTOR The unibomber clearly lived better on $400 a year than Molly did on $40. He could afford toilet paper and she could not. (I can't find any information on how people got by without it, and I don't even THINK about how they did). Here is an exerpt from my file on "The Tragedy of Toilet Paper and Laundry", posted in reply to something by Jay Hanson, and on my web page econ section. FROM MY PAGE: Paper making is a big industry in Wisconsin, and there is the Institute of Paper Chemistry in Appleton. So I take some interest in paper, and even interviewed for a job with a research project at UW Madison on new ways to make paper from wood pulp using enzymes. While paper was invented by a Chinese bureaucrat in 105 AD, it did not get to Europe until the Middle Ages. It was made one sheet at a time and was thus quite expensive, until the development of the continuous-web Fourdrinier paper machine in 1799. But this could be used to make only relatively tough newsprint: soft toilet paper is much more of a problem to mass produce. This reminds me of the situation that existed some years ago (1960's or 70's?), when the US had very good toilet paper relative to the rest of the world. In Europe it was very rough. Somewhere between burlap and sandpaper. When we went to Israel we would pack an extra suitcase with toilet paper for friends there, since the local kind was of the European type. If your hypothetical paper company made the soft US style while only the rough European style was available, the outcome would have been different. And the "standard of living" of the community would have been improved! ANYONE out there remember those good old GLORY DAYS when the US was the world leader in toilet paper technology??> END OF TP INSERT On estimating the "purchasing power" of that $40 then compared to today: I think any CPI estimate would have to be based on a list of the prices of items available at that time. But lacking that, the money value of gold is the best way deal with this. She COULD very well have been paid in gold, Or at least she could have converted her dollars into gold. The goods available are so different today (compact discs, computers and tickets on jet planes today; she might have been able to buy a slave then, at least if she moved to Maryland), but an ounce of gold is exactly the same today as then. I know I read that he lived on about $400/day because I associate this "dollar a day" income level as being about what the "really poor" people of the world live on today. A recent report from the Population Institute claims that today about 1.3 billion people (that is about 22% of humanity) live on LESS than a dollar a day. I associate this with the Mason Clark idea that there are the ONLY people that the field of economics should be concerned with. To me this demonstrates that most people today live far better than most of the people in human history. And certainly most people in the US live far better than most of the people either in the world today, or in history. This fact is SO BIG and SO OBVIOUS that most people overlook it. We tend to focus on LITTLE details and miss the REALLY BIG things. Forest and tree thing. GEORGE WASHINGTON But I will add this. President George Washington was paid $25,000 a year (I read in a recent sci.econ thread). If that was typical of what the "rich" made around 1790, then his pay was 25,000/40 = 625 times as much as the "poor" Molly. When people complain about the high pay of CEO's they say it is only 2 or3 hundred times as much as the workers. So maybe the "gap" between the rich and the poor has closed since the days of Washington? > George's salary was horrendous even for his time as >well as we could tell. $25,000 / Molly's $40 = 625 > In the Revolutionary war he supposedly included >expenses for the "General thing". Turned out he charged them >many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Including things like >lost income from his Mount Vernon etc in addition to highly >detailed minor expenses. Congress decided to never again >give George expenses for anything and preferred paying him >a large salary with no expenses. > Even though an anomaly, believe you are correct that >there was a very large rich - poor gap. Had a tough time >trying to equate pre Revolutionary times salaries with >today's dollars. But did find the data in Lewis and Clark >journals which sanity checks the pension. The soldiers were >paid $5 per month, Sargent's $8 per month, and the Captains >etc more. FINAL COMMENTS: GEORGE vs BILL and MOLLY So besides the "Father of our Country", GW was the "Father of Expense Account Padding"? But if we take his $25,000 as the Presidents Pay, as I noted, it is 625 times the Molly Pitcher pension = a sargent's military pension. Today the President makes $200,000 and a Social Security pensioner about $12,000 or 1/17 of the President. The recent report from that Budget Priorities group complained that today the "rich" quintile has incomes that are 20 time that of the "poor" quintile. So this looks like the "gap" between "rich" and "poor" today is much less than when the country started. And using my gold conversion, GW's $25,000 = X350/20.67 = $423,319 today. So wages really ARE falling! No wonder poor Hillary has to get a job writing books, to keep the Clinton family income up, while Martha could stay home. Note that gold has recently dropped to about $300/ounce. Using that, Georges salary would be only about $25,000 X 300/20.67 =$362,000 today and Molly's pension $40 = $580 today. PS I lived for two years in Monmoth county New Jersey, and people there still talk about Molly Pitcher and the battle of Monmoth. ,,,,,,, _______________ooo___(_O O_)___ooo_______________ (_) jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin USA. This message was brought to you using biodegradable binary bits, and 100% recycled bandwidth.