By The Numbers Presents Dollar Day!

BY THE NUMBERS

By The Numbers, a look at what’s in the news . . . by the numbers. These are just numbers, not suggestions that they mean more or less than what they are. We do not suggest that one number is connected to another. These are simply facts with no extraneous details, bias or slanted reporting. To borrow (and perhaps mangle a bit) a quote from legendary fictional detective Joe Friday, it’s just the numbers, ma’am!

Did you know that Nov. 3 is Give Someone A Dollar Day? (Well, to be fair – we didn’t either. But hey, that’s the wonders of waking up with Siri and a smartphone!) The concept is that if we perform an act of kindness by giving someone a dollar, the world will be a little better place. Our intrepid reporting staff tried to find out who and how the day got started and it was as murky as an underground parking garage from the Watergate era. So we chucked the research and decided to just focus on some fun facts with the dollar. And we hope you join us and give someone a dollar today!

$12.09

How much is a dollar equivalent to today from, oh, let’s say 1955? Yup, $12.09! And no, that does not mean if you have a dollar from 1955 that specific piece of monetary paper is worth $12.09. It is the purchasing power of that dollar in today’s terms.

1941 – 2 gallons

Not too long after the end of World War II, if you wanted to get some fish and an aquarium in your home, a dollar (well, about 98 cents) could have gotten you a 2-gallon aquarium.

1942-43

From the same era, a lady could have bought a dress for $1. And gotten a matching handbag to go with it for the same price!

2 Mickey D meals

Let’s fast forward about 10 years and go on a date! If you took someone to McDonald’s, you could have gotten two meals consisting of a burger, fries and soda for 70 cents. Heck, you’d still have 30 cents left over for a real treat afterward – the ice cream shop!

1963

Cleopatra, Hud, The Birds . . . those were just some of the big smash Hollywood blockbusters from that year. Guess what? You could have gotten a ticket to see any of them for less than $1 – 86 cents to be exact!

3 Gallons of gas

Yes, some of us remember that we could get 3 galls of gas for less than a buck back in the day. Let’s wander back to 1966 and 3 gallons would have cost us about 96 cents. We could’ve cruised the loop around the drive-in quite a few times with that!

3 bananas

Let’s get back to reality. On average, $1 today will get you about 3 bananas. Oh well, it was fun to remember, huh!