Inflation II

 

One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)

I got the routine, put another nickel in the machine
Feelin' so bad, can't you make the music easy and sad
I could tell you a lot, but you've got to be true to your code
Make it one for my baby and one more for the road

A nickel?  Really? Really?

The Seventh Amendment to the US Constitution, one of the Bill of Rights, reads:

“In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

Good luck trying to find a lawyer that is interested in a $20 court case. The filing fees are probably greater than $20!  But if those $20 are considered to be in US Dollars, USD, in the year the Constitution was enacted, that $20 in 1789 is worth $633.64 today.  The value of the dollar varies from year to year. That is what inflation and deflation is all about.  However in the long term before 1944, the value of money did not change very much.  Thus a law setting a penalty, a benefit, or mentioning any monetary value, assumed it would not appreciably change over time.  However beginning in 1944 with the Bretton Woods agreement, the long term change in money was inflationary but modest.  Beginning in 1971 with the Nixon Shock, the change in the long term value of money became inflationary and dramatic.

Any monetary value entered in law should note the amount is in the current year dollars.  Then if the value of money is changed, that value will also change.  If this had been the case in 2009, when the minimum wage was last enacted, the specified wage of $7.50/hr. in 2009 USD, it would be $9.75/hr. in 2020 USD. 

When Johnny Mercer wrote One for My Baby (and One More For The Road) in 1943, his nickel is now worth $0.81. If you could find a jukebox today, it wouldn’t cost a 2022 nickel in the machine to play a song.