And as a reminder blue collar work was _an improvement_ over the default which was agricultural work. Most workers in the US could not afford to buy clothing from a catalog in the 1930s.
The dress comparison was as opposed to her peer group who wore clothes made out of seed bags.
I do get that the specific type I called out might have some functional equivalent that's simply a different style & material but is just as good, but not that cheap, they don't. Under $150, probably, sure. Under $50? No.
This suggests that the cost of clothing has inflated at more like 3x the nominal inflation rate, despite the existence of $18 (or cheaper!) shirts—the inflation was eaten up by worsening quality, rather than showing up in prices, but like for like, even with a generous "functional equivalent" accounting, the change was more like $0.79 -> $50+ than $0.79 -> ~$18—your "equivalent" dollar under the latter calculation in-fact buys less.
Your own example is an interesting one because a) it’s very hard to compare clothing by objective quality b) you’re changing the goal posts. I’ve found a carhart product that nearly exactly matches your specification and msrp’s for $40. I’ve seen discounters selling it for $25. Which is getting very close to your specific target.
My pet peeve is automated checkouts and ordering kiosks. These save stores and venues on labor costs by making the customers do the work for the store. For free, and disproportionally wasting customers' time.
(In many cases this applies to self-service in general.)
Based on what I’ve heard, it may be wasting time somewhere like Germany where the staff are scanning your items at lightning speed. However, here in Poland self-checkout is where you go to save time. Human-staffed checkouts are and have always been slow like an iceberg. Now and before self-checkout was ever a thing. I was relieved when they were introduced, precisely thanks to the time saved. I hate waiting in queues.
All self-checkout machines are moody and lock up if you so much as look at it funny. It would be somewhat acceptable if there was always a dedicated employee delegated solely to assist and unlock the machines, but stores cheap out even on that.
Now, you just need to deal with individual people being slow partially because it’s not their job and partially because it’s a lot less efficient to have a little kiosk vs a conveyer belt. Not to mention if you want to buy something that a store locks up you need to wait for them to go get it. Progress?
Also keep in mind that the quality and durability of that dress, and similarly-priced clothing of the era, made it possible to not need to buy new every season. That dress could be expected to last for years, longer with simple repairs.
Also, shoes are even worse than clothing for declining price/decreasing quality.
Oddly, the low end getting worse while prices also go up has made $200+ good leather shoes more attractive, LOL. Though I expect we’re about to either see most of those companies go out of business, or hike prices $100 or so in a short period of time, given post-2021 labor price increases. They’ve got to be hurting for margin right now.
On the flip side, four years is nothing. I have shoes I bought over thirty years ago, and all I've ever done is replace the insoles. Even the laces are original.
I'd say over four years of this a few days a week on a $9 pair of sneakers is pretty decent. They'll likely hit at least six or seven before replacement.
And yeah, I have some nice dress shoes that I've had for twenty years that pretty much look like the day I bought them. They get worn like 2-3 times a year. I also have leather cowboy boots I bought over 15 years ago that had their heels replaced a couple of years ago and are otherwise still in great shape. Both were more than $9 though. I think the boots were like $110 back when I bought them at Cavender's. The comment I was replying to:
> I can’t friggin’ believe how bad $70 sneakers can be these days
Even in the 90s my sneakers usually fell apart within a few years, and I rarely even owned $70 sneakers back then even adjusted for inflation. These days I can get sneakers for about $15 that last just about as long as the sneakers I owned in the 90s. That's the equivalent of buying ~$6 shoes in 1990 by many inflation calculators.
These are my cheap sneakers, a little bit different but the same brand and general style:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Athletic-Works-Men-s-Banded-Jogge...
One pair, $230, made in USA. Just looked it up, are now 10 years old. Perfectly fine and at this rate will last another 10, then be resoled and last another 20. These cost $440 now.
The other, which I used more often actually, made in I don't know where, are now almost 20 years old and still perfectly fine as well, tho the outsoles will need work soon.
I basically switch between the two whenever I need to wear some winter boots, except for when it's super cold, then I take out the Baffins, which are the only boots that have kept my feet warm no matter what.
In the same timeframe I've run through regular sneakers of the ~$50 kind from Costco about once per year (and I also keep 2 pairs around so I never have the same ones on two days in a row)
Most of the examples I’ve found that approach the originals in quality are $200 or more. I want to know if anyone tracks one down for less than $150, because I’d likely own 2-3 of them before the year’s out if they do. 8x the supposedly inflation-adjusted price of the original would be, from what I can tell, a bargain.
Your note that a dress per year felt like a lot is exactly my point: if I had to pay $150 per blue-collar work shirt I’d feel like I was doing pretty great if I could responsibly buy a couple per year. IOW, buying similar quality goods, our alleged improvements in QOL are significantly diminished.
[edit] if you look into what decently-constructed (not even finely-made! Just, like, not shit) dresses made with fabrics that aren’t mostly or entirely plastic cost, they’re hundreds of dollars today, even for fairly simple ones, especially midi-length or longer (as there’s more fabric than in a mini)