Falling Behind: Financial Expert Shows Real Earnings of College Graduates Lower Than in 1983

Financial expert Robert Gill estimates that to live as well as one's parents (or grandparents) did in 1983 earning $30,000 a year, at today's prices one would have to earn $162,342.  

That's a 441 percent increase.

Compare that to the change in earnings of new college graduates in 1983 and 2023.  

The average earnings of a new college graduate in 1983: $17,700

The average earnings of a new college graduate in 2023: $58,862

Earnings of new college graduates are up just 246% 

Or think of it this way.  If $30,000 a year was what a family needed to live comfortably in 1983, a new college graduate earned 59 percent of that.  A new graduate with an engineering degree ($24,100 a year) could almost support a middle class family.

Today, it's impossible with one, oftentimes two, college graduates working full time as the earnings of new grads ($58,862) are just 36 percent of $2,342.