The first 4 issues of this series are here, here, here, and here — all showing lower affordability of basic necessities as government grew.
In this issue the base price of basic model vehicles is put into terms of the number of weeks of pay earned in a manufacturing job that would be required to buy the car. In this last of the basic necessities, transportation, the lost affordability is not as clear as in the first 4 kinds of necessities. Here is the rundown:
Back in 1926, a Ford Model T Runabout had an original Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of $350. This was at a time when workers in manufacturing earned an average of $24.38 per week, meaning that less than 15 weeks worth of pay would have bought the car.
After WWII, the company making army jeeps, Willys-Overland, transitioned into making production jeeps — but their price was pretty high compared to the going wages, and it took almost 24 weeks of pay in order to afford that utility vehicle: the CJ2A. The CJ-5 in 1968 was more affordable, and you could get one in under 22 weeks.
The 1984 Jeep CJ-7 only required 19 weeks of pay to purchase, but then things started going to hell — after Reagan left office and the authoritarian bureaucracy grew like wildfire. By 1998, it took over 25 weeks of pay to buy a Jeep Wrangler. By 2013, it almost took 28 weeks to get one. Even the eCar, Nissan Leaf S, took almost as much.
We no longer buy cars under the economic freedoms that we had back in 1926, when you could get a car with just 14 weeks of pay. If we removed all of the regulations and government spending that had occurred after 1926, then — due to the return of free market dynamics — our cars would become more affordable again.