[tjansen]

Did a manager at a grocery store have the same amount of responsibility as today? My guess would be that today being a deli manager just means that you need to follow your chain's rule books. In 1985, with more independent stores and smaller chains, a manager had more responsibilities, and thus her contributions were more directly related to the store's profit than today. Thus a good deli manager is worth less than she used to be (and the really good people should work where they contribute more value, like creating the rules for deli managers in a chain).

[vacri]

While we're pulling reasons out of the air, I think that the difference in wages betwen '85 and today is /clearly/ because of Saturn's wobble.

[natrius]

That's a ridiculous comment. The reasons were not pulled out of thin air. Relative to the population, it seems likely that more people are qualified to become deli managers today than they were in 1985 due to standardization and advances in technology. If more people can do a job, it will receive less compensation.

At least be right if you're going to try to shoot down a comment with worthless sarcasm.

[krschultz]

Really? Do you what percent of groceries stores we shop in today were around in 1985? Almost all of them. Same brands, same buildings, hell a lot of the people are the same too. My Dad was doing sales for Colgate and Nestle in 1970 and dealt with almost the exact same stores we have in our area today. A lot has changed in tech in 25 years, but the rest of the economy hasn't nearly as much. Last time I was at a deli counter, it was a bunch of meat and cheese that needed to be sliced and weighed by a bunch of teenagers. I don't think that has changed along the way at all.

[natrius]

I was born in 1985, so I don't really know how things were back then. I'm guessing more people actually used butchers and deli counters rather than picking up pre-packaged meat. I'm also guessing that it was harder to actually slice the meat since that's basically automated today.

Regardless, the original comment was fairly reasonable and didn't deserve the response it got.