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Posted by David Sherman [24.32.202.83] on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 15:36:27 :
In Reply to: Re: Next one posted by Kaegi [24.113.81.122] on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 15:14:56 :
My grandpa got $1/day feeding rocks into a rock crusher around 1915, so I think skilled factory pay was considerably better, even in 1897. Around 1890, miners here got $3/day, which was considered good wages. By 1910, they were up to about $6. In this case, the price of gold is a fair comparison, since most air compressors went into mines, and most mines were, at least on paper and when speaking to the stock holders, gold mines. Look at the price of a compressor as being 800 ounces of gold, not counting the power source and not counting freight from Chicago.
Your point about income tax is true. Another interesting bit of local history is that one of the first group medical plans in the country started here -- the Miner's Union Hospital. For $1/month deducted from his pay, a miner could go to the hospital and have a doctor patch him up whenever necessary. Can you imagine $1/month for health insurance, with no deductible and no co-pay, today? Even if we figure inflation at 50X, that's still about half of what insurance cost snow. Of course all a doctor could really do back then was clean wounds, set bones, bandage and splint the mess, and give you some laudanum for the pain.
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