NightFox
Wildling
Er..um, hate to break this to you but using your numbers, your increase in salary has not even kept up with inflation since 1974.Unions rule when it comes to protecting the working mans wages and benefits. Going back 41 years is proof enough of that.
1974 I was making 10.03 an hour.
1981 I was making 11.80 an hour
1983 I was making 13,89 an hour.
1988 I was making just over 16 an hour
fast forward to today and, it's 34 an hour...
Unions rule...........................
If you were making $10.03 in 1974, you would need to be making $53.63 in 2016 to maintain the same purchasing power using average annual U.S. CPI data not to mention making up for all the money the union extracts from you in dues and all the wage increases you should have gotten due purely to productivity increases.
So put down the pom-poms, the union hasn't done anything for you in terms of the purchasing power of your wages, you've actually gone backwards.