Thanks for asking,
I spoke too soon! I found an index for Advertising Printing that
should provide the means to come up with a good approximation of
1980's prices.
======================================================================
1) How much did it cost to bulk mail in 1980? I have found history of
first-class rates -- http://www.akdart.com/postrate.html -- but
nothing on bulk mail.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A complete US Domestic Mail Rate History document is available from
the US Postal Service. All classes of postal rates are documented by
change dates.
You may Open or Save the document by clicking on the RATEHIST.doc link
shown on the following document description HTML page.
USPS-LR-J-90 - Domestic Mail Rate History
http://www.prc.gov/show_document.asp?docid=27151
You'll probably need to adjust the margins and wrapping options in
your Word-compatible viewer in order to see these tables without
distortion. They are too wide to copy here in the Google Answers
format of 70 text characters per line.
=====================================================================
2) How much did it cost to print a mail piece in 1980? I'm assuming
2,000 4-color 8 1/2" x 14" pieces on standard stock, but understand
these specs may be too specific -- a credible index would be fine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have located the Producer Price Index from the U.S. Department of
Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices for various types of
advertising printing are indexed from 1982 to 2001. You should be able
to use the index numbers to calculate historical prices based upon
current pricing.
You may wish to try different category lookups. The website uses
session IDs, so any direct links would expire before you had a chance
to view them.
Go to:
Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey Data
http://www.bls.gov/ppi/home.htm#data
From the Create Customized Tables section, select the Industry Data
Link. A new window with a Java applet will open.
In the Applet left-hand industry menu, select and highlight category
323110 (Commercial Lithographic Printing). In the opposite menu,
select 32311032311091 (Direct Mail Advertising Printing). Press the
Get Data Button. If you use a Pop-up blocker, you might need to press
CTRL or other key to allow the statistics result page to display.
Again, the statistics are a mismatch for the Google Answers display
format, but I've used the Formatting Options to pull out Annual
figures only. Indexing began in June, 1982 at 100.0.
Annual
------
1982 102.1
1983 102.8
1984 106.5
1986 108.6
1987 124.6
1988 126.7
1989 133.1
1990 137.7
1991 140.7
1992 140.9
1993 140.9
1994 141.5
1995 148.1
1996 148.3
1997 149.2
1998 150.9
1999 156.3
2000 158.2
2001 160.4
======================================================================
3) What did the average middle manager make in 1980 relative to today?
In other words, if an average middle manager currently makes
$100,000/year, what did that same person make in 1980? I don't need
the current wage or the 1980 wage (though these would be nice), but
only a fairly reliable index. I don't think the Consumer Price Index
is the best measure of this, but may be persuaded I'm wrong.
The Consumer Price Index isn't necessarily the best measure, but how
about the Wage and Employment Cost Indexes? I've located some fairly
specific stats that should be reasonably accurate for your
calculation. Index have been back-calculated from 1989 to 1981.
Historical Employment Cost Index
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/eci.echistry.txt
Scroll a little more than halfway down this very long document to
Wages and Salaries. Unfortunately, page numbers indicated in the Table
of Contents are not usable in the .txt document. There are several
tables that should be useful.
TABLE 5a. EMPLOYMENT COST INDEX (WAGES AND SALARIES ONLY), CIVILIAN
WORKERS(1) BY OCCUPATION AND INDUSTRY GROUP
First, look at the White Collar Occupations from 1981-2004:
White-collar occupations, excluding Sales:
1981 68.2
1982 71.6
1983 76.0
1984 80.3
1985 84.3
1986 88.2
1987 91.7
1988 95.6
1989 100.0
1990 105.1
1991 109.8
1992 113.2
1993 116.8
1994 120.2
1995 123.8
1996 127.8
1997 132.0
1998 137.0
1999 141.8
2000 147.6
2001 153.3
2002 158.7
2003 163.5
Next, Executive, administrative, and managerial occupations:
1989 100.0
1990 103.6
1991 108.5
1992 111.9
1993 115.0
1994 118.1
1995 122.2
1996 126.2
1997 131.0
1998 137.4
1999 141.6
2000 148.6
2001 154.0
2002 160.7
2003 167.9
2004 171.4
By year, this indicates an approximate 106% difference in managerial
salaries between February, 1981 and 2004, i.e. current salaries would
be more than halved. It would be "safe" to use a 2% additional drop to
1980 salaries from the 1981 average shown.
Salary.com offers current salary numbers.
Six Figure Executive and Management Jobs
http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_salaryrangenarrowjob_50_EX01.html
From the executive and management positions detailed, select the
position that most closely matches your requirements, or average
salary data across a range of middle management positions.
Search Strategy
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The winning Google Search Terms are:
postal rate history
business "price index" 1980
wage index statistics
I hope you find this information useful. Should you have questions
about the material or links provided, please, feel free to ask.
---larre |
,
0 Comments
)