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What Made the Cost of Living Skyrocket in the Last 50 Years?

May 03, 2017
Staff

WRITER

In 1924, you could buy a new house for $7,720. In 1962, just shy of 40 years later, a new house was up to $12,000. However, just nine short years later in 1971, the cost of a new house doubled. Seven years later in 1978 it doubled again. By 1983, the average new house cost $82,000. Why did housing costs --- and other costs --- remain stable for decades then begin to skyrocket? What happened in the 1970s that caused an increase in the cost of living?

Listen to this segment beginning at mark 3:15 from The Glenn Beck Program:

PAT: Here's how crazy the housing market is in Texas. My daughter and son-in-law are about to buy a house. And they were looking at this beautiful house. I think it was $155,000. But it had a lot of upgrades. It was kind of small. Like 1800 square feet.

GLENN: I was going to say, in Texas, that's got to be a five-square-foot house.

PAT: But it's beautiful. With all the upgrades that you would expect in a house half a million dollars. So they went to look at it. Loved it. Put an offer in, at 165. Like 10,000 over. They didn't get the -- they didn't get the house. The bid that won was $175,000.

JEFFY: Wow.

PAT: 20,000 over.

GLENN: See, this is what makes me concerned --

STU: Buy high, sell low, right?

GLENN: No. That's the way I usually do it.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: Here's what makes me really concerned: You know, I live in a town that's in a higher tax bracket, and so there's some pretty spectacular houses. I'm telling you, houses that I thought were spectacular three years ago look like tiny houses.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: We went for a Sunday drive.

JEFFY: Yes. Yes.

GLENN: This last Sunday. And honestly, we saw three houses that we said, where the hell does that one stop? It doesn't stop.

JEFFY: It doesn't, Glenn. They don't.

GLENN: They don't.

JEFFY: They don't.

GLENN: I saw a house that just kept going and going. Honestly, we were driving down the street --

JEFFY: See, that's the downsizing I believe you're talking about. When you say, I want to sell my house and downsize, I look at those homes and go, that's the downsize --

GLENN: No. You know what, we have a house -- you know, our ranch is like 1800 square feet. We love it. We absolutely love it. Because the family is always together.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: I mean, it's not great when you're like, "Get out of my face." If somebody has -- is having a really bad day, not a good house. Not a good house. But when you're all getting along, that's -- I mean, that's just great. And we love being close together. And some of these houses that they're building now are so --

JEFFY: Oh, my gosh.

GLENN: -- huge. And, you know, you'll be like, oh, it's a family of three.

What? What do they each have 18,000 square feet? What -- I mean, what's in that house?

JEFFY: Yeah.

PAT: There's a house they've been building for like 18 years, I think. Because they just keep adding new sections to it.

JEFFY: Yeah.

PAT: That is fairly close to us. And you just think, what do you people do for a living? How big a house -- what is this, a Ronald McDonald House? How big does this clown need his house to be?

JEFFY: That's not the only one, man. That's not the --

GLENN: Okay. So I live down the street from one of the guys who is the chairman of the board of the train -- you know, one of the big trains. So, I mean, you know -- I mean, you know --

PAT: Are there big trains?

GLENN: Yeah. There are big trains.

PAT: That's still a thing?

JEFFY: Yes.

GLENN: A guy who is pulling down some coinage.

STU: Some cash. Yeah, a lot of shipping goes down --

GLENN: Yeah, a lot of -- a big shipping area here in the southwest. And he's like the president or chairman of the board or something. And he's got a large house.

JEFFY: Pretty nice place?

GLENN: A large house. We drive by and we're like, "Wow, that's a large house." You go, you know, six blocks away from him, and I'm telling you, you look at him and say, this must be where Jesus lives. Because I know this guy who I can't relate to on how much cash he's making, I know what his house looks like. Who lives here? The entire holy family? What is this house?

(chuckling)

PAT: I think Jesus has a smaller house.

STU: Why?

GLENN: Well, the camels. You have to keep camels. Sheep. You don't want the sheep and the camels mixing.

JEFFY: He only has half a basketball court. Not a full basketball court?

PAT: No, it's like that documentary Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade.

GLENN: Again, learn the difference between a movie and a documentary.

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: May I go here?

Cost of living. How much did a house cost in 1924? A new car was $275.

PAT: Not very much.

Really.

JEFFY: Wow.

GLENN: $265.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Your average rent was $18 a month. And tuition to Harvard --

PAT: Eighteen!

GLENN: Tuition to Harvard for a full year was $250.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: How much was a house?

PAT: 2,000.

JEFFY: Yeah. Got to be close --

GLENN: Okay. This shows you the run-up of the Roaring Twenties. A new house was $7,720.

PAT: Wow, that's --

JEFFY: Even with the Sears catalog.

GLENN: That's the average house. So now in 1938, how much was a new house?

PAT: During the Depression, probably considerably less.

GLENN: Harvard tuition had gone up to $420. A new car was $860. A new house, $3,900.

JEFFY: Wow.

Oh, yeah.

STU: Wow. Yeah.

GLENN: You go to 1943, it's $3,600.

PAT: Jeez.

GLENN: So you held on to your house -- you had to hold on to your house -- you couldn't sell --

PAT: You were taking too much of a loss.

GLENN: You were taking a bath.

You didn't get back up to a $9,000 until 1952. In '52, tuition to Harvard University was $600. A new car was $1,700.

Let me skip ahead here.

Let's go to -- let's go to 1962. A new house was $12,000. So you've got from 1924 to 1962.

JEFFY: Pretty stable.

GLENN: Pretty stable. Except for the depression where it went down, you've got gone from $7,000 to $12,000. Okay?

In 40 years.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: 1962, cost of a new house is $12,000. A new car is $2,900. Tuition to Harvard is 1500.

Now let's go to 1973. Let's go to 1970 -- let's go to 1971.

A new house has gone in nine years. A new house has gone from $12,000 to $25,000.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: Your car has gone to $3,500. And your Harvard tuition has gone to $2,600 a year. Okay?

From in 1927 -- or 1924, $250 a year to go to Harvard. To now in 1971, $2,600. Here's where it gets interesting. Remember, 1971, a house was $2,500. How much was a house in 1978?

PAT: If it acted the way it did during the depression, we were in a serious recession.

JEFFY: No way, though.

PAT: You would think maybe it went down again?

JEFFY: Because in '78 they were still -- they weren't building as much.

GLENN: Remember, double incomes. Double incomes had just started in the early '70s.

JEFFY: It was okay for mom to work.

GLENN: Yep. Yep. So your house went from, in '61 or '63, $12,000 to '71, $25,000.

PAT: So it doubled.

GLENN: To 1978, to$ 54,000.

PAT: Doubled again.

GLENN: Your cost in 1983 has gone to $82,000.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: A new car is now $8,500. Ticket -- or, tuition to Harvard is now $8100. It had gone from $250 to $1,500 to now $8,000. What happened? The government started guaranteeing tuitions.

Then in 1999, a new house, $131,000. A new car, $21,000. And tuition to Harvard, $31,000 per year.

STU: Hmm.

PAT: And now it's, what? Sixty? Fifty or $60,000 a year?

GLENN: Yeah, I don't have anything past '99.

PAT: Wow.

STU: One of the things, if you remember, go back to the 2007 era, before the housing collapse happened, and you were making the arguments on the air all the time that this stuff was going to occur -- giving me some weird eye signals. I don't know what that means.

GLENN: No, I'm just listening.

STU: You're just pleased with yourself, I got it.

GLENN: No, no, I'm just listening to you.

STU: But one of the things you based that on was the Case-Shiller Index. It was one of the big pieces of data that you found to be incredibly problematic because it controls for things like inflation. These numbers obviously are partially inflation, partially the housing market going up. It's tough to break those things out.

GLENN: And now -- you can't look at anything like Case-Shiller. You can't look at anything anymore because nothing is real. Because the fed has dumped money. Because we have printed money.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: You don't know -- is the stock market real? Is the housing price real? You don't know. Nothing is based on truly free market principles.

STU: Yeah. And I think, you know, there's a lot of complication there, which is what I think you're getting at.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: But it's still an interesting thing to look at.

GLENN: It is. It is.

STU: So basically 100 is your average of the Case-Shiller Index for basically the entire time. So it ranged between 80 and 120 the entire time. Kind of just measuring how overinflated housing prices are.

GLENN: And 100 is -- I don't remember how it works.

STU: Normal. Let's say normal is 100. So it ranged between 80 and 120 --

GLENN: For how many years?

STU: -- from 1880 to 2000. Okay?

GLENN: 1880 to 2000.

STU: The only exception to that was the Great Depression, where it was a little bit under 80, but it was basically between there the entire time between 1880 and 2000.

PAT: And this is on the Kay Jewelers scale?

GLENN: No, this is Case-Shiller.

STU: Case-Shiller.

GLENN: Who have we talked on? We've had Shiller on?

STU: I can't remember which one it is.

GLENN: Yeah, we've had one of them on. Really, really bright. This is as scientific as you can get on housing.

STU: Yes.

PAT: Okay.

STU: Yes. So between 80 and 120, for 120 years, okay? The housing crisis peaks in 2005?

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: And it hits almost 200. So it's double normal.

PAT: Jeez.

STU: It had never even come close to that in its history. Then you have the housing collapse, right? We all remember the big inflation and the housing collapse. And finally we're getting back -- we're getting back. That's not the story the Case-Shiller Index tells at all. It went from -- about 120 at the beginning of the housing bubble, up to 200, and then it dropped. The bubble popped, and it came back to 120.

GLENN: Still the highest level --

STU: So it was still at the highest level it had been in 120 years, was the end of the crisis.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: Wow.

STU: It has now reached back up to 160.

PAT: Jeez.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: From 120 to 160 again.

GLENN: And I tell you, the only place that -- the only place that to me makes any sense at all is Texas. Because the people are moving to -- the influx of people here is just outrageous. How fast it's growing.

JEFFY: You see the apartments they're building.

GLENN: Oh, and they pop up fast. And they're all sold. I mean, it's just so fast. Because people are moving here. Everywhere else, what is happening in your town that is causing this big bubble?

JEFFY: I didn't even see that mentioned in the Kay Jeweler Index.

GLENN: It's not Kay Jeweler.

PAT: I think that's why people go to Jared.

JEFFY: Right.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.