{"id":2128472,"date":"2026-09-04T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2128472"},"modified":"2026-09-04T19:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:25:00","slug":"a-new-toyota-camry-costs-thousands-less-than-it-did-in-1997-if-you-adjust-for-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2128472","title":{"rendered":"A New Toyota Camry Costs Thousands Less Than It Did In 1997 (If You Adjust For Inflation)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"columns-holder\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-widget\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-heading\">Add Jalopnik on Google:<\/div>\n<div class=\"add-on-google-buttons-row\">\n                    <button type=\"button\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"preferred-source\">Preferred Source<\/button><br \/>\n                    <a href=\"https:\/\/profile.google.com\/cp\/Cg0vZy8xMXBneTRxX2Zw\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"google-discover\">Google Discover<\/a>\n                <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2193114\/average-new-car-price-dropped-in-may\/\" target=\"_blank\">the average transaction price on a new car<\/a> right around $50,000 and the median full-time income <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/opub\/ted\/2026\/median-weekly-earnings-were-1204-in-2025.htm\" target=\"_blank\">slightly over $62,000<\/a>, it&#8217;s no wonder so many people feel like cars have gotten too expensive. Sub-$50,000 options still exist, sure, but you quite literally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/there-arent-any-new-cars-left-under-20-000-1851611136\/\" target=\"_blank\">can&#8217;t buy a new car for less than $20,000<\/a> anymore. And yet, a funny thing happened when I plugged the original MSRP of a base-model, first-year XV20 Toyota Camry into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/data\/inflation_calculator.htm\" target=\"_blank\">the BLS inflation calculator<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the number it spit out was higher than the base price of a new Camry. Officially, a new Camry is more affordable than it was three decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>Our friends over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cars.com\/research\/toyota-camry-1997\/trims\/\" target=\"_blank\">at Cars.com<\/a> keep a handy database of old pricing, and it lists the original MSRP of a 1997 Toyota Camry CE at $16,448. Those who wanted an automatic transmission, however, were forced to part with $17,248. Head over to the inflation calculator, pick July 1997 as your starting point, and you get an inflation-adjusted price of about $34,220. Or, if you want pricing for the automatic, you&#8217;re looking at $35,884. You can&#8217;t get a new Camry with a manual anymore, but regardless of which XV20 transmission you prefer, the base price of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.toyota.com\/configurator\/build\/step\/model\/year\/2026\/series\/camry\/?bap_guid=bad993ed-fb57-4a74-ae18-f2913a27b75a\" target=\"_blank\">a new Camry LE<\/a> is $29,600 (not including destination fees).<\/p>\n<p>Now, I&#8217;m no math expert, but I&#8217;m pretty sure $29,600 is several thousand dollars less than either $34,220 or $35,884. That&#8217;s not the only example, either. Do the same thing with a sixth-generation Honda Accord, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cars.com\/research\/honda-accord-1998\/\" target=\"_blank\">$15,100 in July 1998 dollars<\/a> turns into\u00a0$30,895 today. Meanwhile,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/automobiles.honda.com\/tools\/build-and-price-trimwalk?fromvlp=1&amp;modelseries=Accord-Sedan&amp;modelyear=2026\" target=\"_blank\">a new Accord<\/a> starts at $28,395. Aside from full-size pickup trucks that are vastly different vehicles than they were back then \u2014 $14,505 for a 1997 Ford F-150 becomes\u00a0$30,850, significantly lower than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ford.com\/build-price\/f150\/choose-model?intcmp=vhp-seconNav-fbc&amp;intcmp=nfbcSplit-cta-chooseModel-f150\" target=\"_blank\">a new F-150&#8217;s<\/a>\u00a0$37,290 base price \u2014 over the last several decades, mainstream car pricing appears to have generally tracked with or beaten inflation.<\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s going on here? How can new cars feel so unaffordable when they officially cost less than they did in the &#8217;90s? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2193340\/elon-musk-trillionaire-stock-market\/\" target=\"_blank\">Money is made up<\/a>, yes, but that&#8217;s not the only issue. As <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/N487K\" target=\"_blank\">a recent Financial Times article points out<\/a>, &#8220;US corporate profits have hit a record high while workers&#8217; slice of the pie has sunk to historic lows, [fueling] discontent among many Americans and a growing political backlash.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>Citing Bureau of Economic Analysis data, the Financial Times reports that annualized pre-tax earnings for U.S. companies hit\u00a0$4.8 trillion in Q2, or 18% of the national income. That&#8217;s reportedly the highest share we&#8217;ve seen since the end of World War II. Meanwhile, workers&#8217; compensation, including wages and benefits, dropped to 60%, which is as low as it&#8217;s been since the 1950s.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Regardless of what measure you look at, workers, in terms of employee compensation, have been receiving an increasingly small share of national income over time,&#8221; JPMorgan economist Abiel Reinhart told FT. &#8220;And the flip side of that is: where is that income going? It&#8217;s got to go somewhere. And a good chunk of it is showing up in corporate profit margins.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, FT writes that:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Bumper returns largely benefit richer Americans, who receive much of their income from investments, while middle- and lower-income households rely more heavily on pay cheques.<\/p>\n<p>Inflation has also outpaced wage growth, causing real hourly earnings to fall by 0.2 per cent in July versus a year earlier.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Republican economic policies have only made the problem worse, handing out tax cuts to corporations and wealthy business owners, while cutting programs that benefit middle-class Americans. Workers have been taking home progressively smaller shares of the pie since Reagan declared open season on unions, but the decline really picked up post-COVID &#8220;and especially over the past 12 months.&#8221; You know, the last 12 months that Donald Trump&#8217;s been president.<\/p>\n<p>Corporate executives have done a fantastic job convincing us that money is always tight, and it&#8217;s unrealistic to expect regular raises, even if they don&#8217;t match inflation. They&#8217;ve convinced us it&#8217;s normal to take on more (unpaid) responsibilities in the hopes of maybe earning a promotion eventually. And unfortunately, they&#8217;ve convinced us that cars have gotten too expensive, when the truth is, they&#8217;ve been systematically chipping away at our pay to keep a bigger piece of the pie for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add Jalopnik on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover With the average transaction price on a new car right around $50,000 and the median full-time income slightly over $62,000, it&#8217;s no wonder so many people feel like cars have gotten too expensive. Sub-$50,000 options still exist, sure, but you quite literally can&#8217;t buy a new car [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,247],"class_list":["post-2128472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-jalopnik-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2128472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2128472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2128472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2128472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}