July 30, 2026

A new cost-of-living analysis is delivering a brutal snapshot of just how far wages have slipped: a full-time minimum-wage worker in 1971 could afford life’s biggest expenses with buying power roughly akin to making $90,000 to $120,000 today. Housing, college, and healthcare were all dramatically cheaper relative to income, the study says, underscoring the widening squeeze on working Americans and the raw clash between stagnant pay and soaring costs.

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