The numbers tell a stark story: between 1975 and 2025, housing costs have risen roughly 10-fold while median household incomes have increased only 7-fold—a compounding gap that has systematically eroded working-class purchasing power. This report presents verified nominal price data across five critical spending categories, drawing from Bureau of Labor Statistics records, Census Bureau surveys, and federal agency databases to document a half-century of economic transformation.

The core finding is unmistakable: housing has become the great divider. While some costs (notably airfare) have actually declined relative to wages thanks to deregulation and competition, shelter costs have far outpaced income growth, fundamentally reshaping what American wages can buy.

The USDA's Food Plans provide the most authoritative measure of grocery costs over time. For a two-person household following a moderate-cost diet:

50-year change: 5.2x increase (from $35 to $182 weekly)

Food spending has actually tracked relatively close to wage growth. The $35/week grocery bill in 1975 represented about 15% of median weekly household income ($227). Today's $182/week bill represents approximately 11% of median weekly income ($1,610). Food has become relatively more affordable as a share of income—a rare bright spot in cost-of-living data, attributable largely to agricultural productivity gains and global supply chains.

Key methodological note: The USDA revised its Thrifty Food Plan methodology in 2021, resulting in a 21% increase in calculated food costs. Pre-2007 and post-2007 figures use different market basket compositions, making direct comparisons imperfect.

Housing represents the starkest divergence between prices and wages. Census Bureau data reveals the magnitude of the shift:

50-year change: ~10x increase (from ~$163 to ~$1,650 monthly)

This trajectory reveals the core of the purchasing power crisis. In 1975, the median gross rent of ~$163 consumed approximately 16.5% of median monthly household income ($983). By 2025, rent of $1,650 consumes approximately 23.7% of median monthly household income ($6,978). For lower-income households, this ratio often exceeds 40-50%—the threshold where economists consider housing "severely unaffordable."

The Census Bureau's decennial housing data provides benchmark figures for context: median gross rent was $108 in 1970, $243 in 1980, $447 in 1990, $602 in 2000, Census and has accelerated since, particularly post-2020.

Domestic airfares present a counterintuitive narrative—one of the few consumer categories where deregulation actually delivered sustained price relief:

CPI-derived estimates may understate actual fares *Pre-deregulation pricing was regulated by Civil Aeronautics Board; fares varied enormously

The deregulation dividend: The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 dismantled CAB price controls. Before deregulation, the Los Angeles-Boston route cost $915.82 in 1978 nominal dollars; by 2015, that same route cost $408.89—a nominal decline despite 37 years of inflation. In inflation-adjusted terms, flying has become dramatically cheaper.

However, the BTS average of $386 in 2025 obscures wide variation. Budget carriers now offer ATL-NYC fares as low as $25–$125 one-way, while full-service business class tickets run $500+. The user's baseline of $25–$125 reflects ultra-low-cost carrier pricing that barely existed before the 2000s.

Critical caveat: Pre-1995 airfare data is reconstructed from BLS CPI indices, not direct ticket surveys. Anecdotal and period sources suggest 1975 fares were substantially higher than CPI extrapolations indicate—potentially $150–$300 for typical domestic routes under regulated pricingBureau of Transportation Statistics