In 1986, the band Timbuk 3 released the song, “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades“. In that song there is a lyric, “Fifty thou a year will buy a lot of beer”. But just how much beer would $50k buy? Also, how much would that much beer be worth now?

Initial observation:

As the song states, $50,000 per year would buy a lot of beer, in 1986. Over time however the value of a dollar can change in ways that affect the cost of beer.

Question:

How much was “a lot of beer” in 1986? And how much has it changed over time? Additionally, how much would one need to make each year since 1986 in order to buy the same amount of beer?

Expectation:

Over time, inflation causes prices to go up, so the amount of beer should decrease over time.

Results:

Using the price of a 6-pack each year since 1986, the amount of beer that $50k could have bought each year, is computable. For ease of understanding and to allow for proper discretization of the beer, the results are given in cans per day. Where $50k in 1986 could buy 187 cans per day.  The table below gives this volume in several units.

While that seems like a lot of beer, it would still take over 100 years to fill a 660,000 gallon olympic sized swimming pool at 187 cans per day.

Below is a graph showing how many cans per day one could buy with $50k per year. With that much money in 1986, one could have bought 187 cans per day. By 2025, that number had dropped to only 75 cans per day.

Amount of beer that $50k could buy each year (in cans per day).

With this change in how many cans per day that one can afford with $50k per year, if one wanted to maintain a constant number of cans per day, the cost would increase.

Cost of the same quantity of beer as $50k in 1986.

From this graph it is clear that the cost of what had been $50,000 in beer would cost approximately $125,000 in 2025, or 2.5x as much as in 1986.

Surprise Results:

Most of the time since 1986 has shown a steady increase (i.e., constant slope). However, there was a sharp increase in price in the late 1980s, followed by a flattening.  In more recent years there seems to be a divergence from the overall trend, with a steeper slope since 2021.

Conclusion:

While 50 thou a year will in fact buy a lot of beer, that amount has decreased dramatically since 1986.

Future Questions:

Is the future, in-fact, so bright that one must wear shades? Have their annual raises allowed them to continue their beer-only lifestyle at the same level?