The Drew Carey Project Volume 1 - Izzit.org

Drew Carey: Few regular people could afford cell phones because the average worker had to sweat for
460 hours to buy one. Boy, how times have changed.
Michael Cox: So this $50.00 phone is less than 3-hours of work; 460 then, 3 now. Huge declines in
prices enabling these things to be afforded by the middleclass and many other products, too.
Drew Carey: Only the rich owned cars a century ago, but today average Americans can afford shiny
SUVs. In terms of time, the cost of a car has fallen by more than 70%. The story is the same for
necessities. Food is 84% cheaper. Clothing is 87% cheaper.
Michael Cox: So food’s going down. Clothing is going down. Housing is going down in cost. We look
at the houses and we see that they’re much more expensive in money terms, but the houses are also twoand-a-half
times as large as back then and they have all the amenities.
Drew Carey: Today, the typical new home comes equipped with a dishwasher, stove, microwave,
fireplace, central heat and air and a bunch of other amenities that weren't standard in homes 50 years ago,
let alone a century ago. The falling cost of living allows regular Joes to own boats, vacation at lakes and
fly around the world. We checked it out. The cost of a cross-country flight has plummeted by 95%.
Michael Cox: When the flights first came out, they were the exclusive purview of the rich, the jet set, but
now the jet set includes just you get on planes and look, there’s people there of all income levels.
Drew Carey: Such progress and yet so many middleclass Americans feel lousy.
CNN News Reporter: And only 19% of middleclass Americans feel they are getting ahead in life.
Drew Carey: Gee, I wonder why. Maybe they’d be in a better mood if news programs weren’t packed
with doom and gloom but, you see, bad news gets ratings.
4-Different Anchor Desks: whether they’ll ever have the kind of . . . all the days. . .
Drew Carey: Remember the auto mechanic who collects motorcycles?
Male 1: Works good. Plenty of it. Just got another raise. Everything is good.
Drew Carey: Even folks who say things are going well for them are often convinced times are tough for
everyone else.
Male 1: Yeah. There’s some big guys and then there’s the poor people and there’s really no middleclass
anyway.
Michael Cox: These are things that they hear about propagated in the media.
Male 1: I guess the middleclass is always getting squeezed.
Drew Carey: Sure seems like he’s been watching a lot of TV.
CBS Sunday Morning: …squeezed is what a lot of middleclass Americans are these days.
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