USA - Americans Gain 73% More Buying Power

Are Americans richer than they were 50 years ago? The answer can be complicated, depending on where you are in your life experience.

According to a report by the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based consumer news operation ConsumerAffairs, in some ways the answer is unquestionably yes. In looking at buying power, which measures income against inflation, the report found general purchasing power had risen 73.1% between 1974 and 2024. The average individual income, adjusted for inflation to 2024 figures, would have risen from the equivalent of $28,278 in 1974 to $48,960 by 2024.

But that’s only part of the story. The cost of many consumer goods has indeed shrunk in the past five decades, and the ubiquity of technological changes—central air conditioning, lifesaving medications, cars that last much longer, smartphones that put a world of money- and time-saving information in our pockets—has quickly become taken for granted, particularly by younger people who cannot recall a world without them.

Medical purchasing power shrank 17.2% during that 50-year period, according to the report, with individual annual out-of-pocket health care spending growing from $972 in 1974 to $1,632 in 2024 in inflation-adjusted dollars. U.S. life expectancy during that time rose from 71.79 years to 79.25, according to Macrotrends.

-www.aol.com, 27 July 2026

Commentary: The Bible says, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come” (2 Timothy 3:1). And Jesus stated: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).

We have heard it often: Times are getting worse, and the world is in chaos. In reality, however, it’s not so, as the excerpt from the above article states. We’ve never had it so good.

Now the question: Should we use the Bible as our signpost, or the news media? We should use both. Jesus speaks to the Jews in Israel, and Paul addresses the Church. Our intention, however, is to highlight Bible prophecy.

What does that mean? Bible readers know that Antichrist is to come. What is this Antichrist’s aim? To be the fake Christ. In order to do this, he has to bring about peace, prosperity, and volumes of merchandise. That’s happening today.

What will be the result? We have often quoted Revelation 13:3b: “…and all the world wondered after the beast.” In chapter 12, we read the words: “…and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world…” (v. 9). Or Revelation 18:23b: “for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”

The word “deceived” simply means leading away from the truth. That is not an action of force, but of voluntarily believing a lie, a falsehood. In the end, after the Church is taken out of the way, 2 Thessalonians 2:11 reads: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”

In summary, the greatest danger and deception is peace and prosperity. Yes, we never had it so good—and that is a sign we are edging closer to the time of the great deception over all of planet earth.

(See The End of the World … Not Yet? Item #1101, $19.)