Fuel to the Fire 3....
You need to be making about $90,000 today to have the same buying power as $50,000 as in 1990.
Fuel to the Fire 4...
In 1990, a 4 year college would cost about $5,000. Today, it is about $24,000. The rate of increase in tuition is much faster than the rate of inflation. If tuition followed the buying power of other products on the market, it should cost about $9,000 today.
Fuel to the Fire 5...
Today, the average starting college grad's salary is about $40,000. In 1990, the average college grad's salary was about $40,000. A grad has to make over $70,000 today to have the same buying power his/her counterpart had in 1990. Only a handful of degrees break that $70,000, and those jobs tend to be in the sciences, specifically engineering.
That being said, I should be fair and say that many degrees do indeed break $70,000 once the person is in mid-career. However, at the bottom of the list are grads with degrees in social work and psychology, which is starting $37,000 or less.
Fuel to the Fire 6
In 2016, there is a push for minimum wage to go to $15/hr. In 2016, the average college grad's hourly pay is about $18.