This is just one of the stories from our “I’ve Always Wondered” series, where we tackle all of your questions about the world of business, no matter how big or small. Ever wondered if recycling is worth it? Or how store brands stack up against name brands? Check out more from the series here.Chris Bailey asks: Why did a pair of jeans, a box of rice, cars, houses and other items that still exist today cost one price in the 1950s but now are so much more? They're still the same products with very little change. In fact, due to automation, many of these things are actually cheaper to produce.In the 1950s, you could buy a house for nearly $7,400, a new car for $1,450 and a pair of Levis jeans for a few bucks. Even after adjusting for inflation, the prices for these items stand at about $98,900, $19,400, and $45, respectively — much less than their current price tag. The median sales price for a house in the U.S. reached over $410,000 last year, while the average new car price jumped to $50,000 and a pair of Levi’s might run you $75. While it seems natural that the cost of goods rise over time thanks to inflation, that hasn’t been true throughout America’s history, said Thomas Stapleford, a historian at the University of Notre Dame and the author of “The Cost of Living in America: A Political History of Economic Statistics.”There was a big spike in consumer prices during the Revolutionary War, then prices dropped off afterwards, Stapleford said. Prices similarly jumped up during the War of 1812, then dropped off, experiencing a long, slow decline until about 1860, Stapleford said. “Right about before the Civil War, the general consumer price level in the U.S. is almost identical to what it was 90 years before,” Stapleford said. Prices then fluctuated up until World War II. “At that point, prices start rising, and they don't stop,” Stapleford said. So what explains the rise in costs? Experts told Marketplace that the Fed has steadily increased the money supply for decades because of its view that a small amount of inflation is important for a healthy economy. A steady increase in the money supply means that the value of the dollar will decrease, which will then cause prices rise to account for the decreasing value of the dollar. Some professions have also increased wages to ensure that they can remain competitive and attract workers, which has pushed up the costs of goods, experts said. An increase in the money supply By the middle of the 20th century, most economists believed — and still believe — that the federal government should slowly increase the money supply each year because a certain amount of inflation is good, Stapleford said.The Federal Reserve currently has an annual inflation target rate of 2%. “Economists believe that gradually increasing the money supply is good for an economy like ours that's relying heavily on investment in new technology and using technology to fuel productivity growth,” Stapleford said. They’re also concerned about the prospect of a deflationary spiral. If consumers see prices decline, they're going to put off making purchases. But that means that demand will fall, and companies will then cut prices or scale back production, or both. If they’re cutting prices, that will fuel deflation even further. And if they’re cutting back on production, that means they’ll cut hours or lay off workers, which means people will have less money to spend, Stapleford explained. Most people now agree that the Great Depression was as severe as it was because the Federal Reserve allowed the money supply to shrink, said Robert Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University and author of the book “The Rise and Fall of American Growth.” So how does an increase in the money supply lead to more expensive products? When the supply of goods increases, you’d expect the prices of those goods to go down. That same principle applies to money, Stapleford said. “As you flood the market with money, then the value of that money decreases,” Stapleford said. “Each dollar is going to buy you less stuff.”Imagine you have $10,000 in your checking account and wake up with an extra $10,000 the next day, Stapleford said. Maybe you'll invest in the stock market or maybe you'll decide to go down to the car dealer to get yourself a new vehicle. Many people will have the same idea, which will cause stock prices to rise and the price of a new vehicle to go up, he explained. Car dealers will raise the prices of their cars, and as they take in more profits, their employees might ask for more money, Stapleford said.“The net effect is as you inject money into the economy writ large, then the prices of everything go up — not just consumer goods, but labor as well. Think about wages and salaries,” Stapleford said. Why are some products more expensive now, even if there’s been no change in efficiency? There are some goods that have actually declined in price over time while getting more powerful, like computers. Engineers and scientists have been able to put more transistors on a microchip over time and transistor prices have fallen, adhering to a concept known as Moore’s Law. But some goods and services have risen in price over time, even if there’s been no change in efficiency, because you need to raise workers’ wages to attract them and remain competitive. Take musicians, for example. “It takes four people to play a Schubert string quartet written 200 years ago, and it's going to take four people, forever, to play that string quartet as long as people want to hear it,” Gordon said. Generally, better machinery and greater innovation means it will take fewer people to produce a good, Gordon said.“So the economy's productivity goes up, and that means we can pay each worker more per hour, because each worker, on average, is producing more per hour thanks to all the machines and all the inventions,” Gordon said.That machinery didn’t help those musicians, but their wages have to go up in line with other occupations, Gordon said. “Otherwise, nobody would be willing to be a musician. People accept that and they are willing to pay more and more to go to concerts,” Gordon said. That’s why the price for, say, a pair of jeans has gone up in line with inflationary trends.“The price of a pair of jeans is mostly labor costs (wages). These wages can’t stay stuck at their 1950 level as inflation and real economic growth occur – if they did stay stuck, workers would leave jean-making and look for work elsewhere,” Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Marketplace over email. When it comes to housing, part of the reason why the median housing cost has gone up is because construction productivity hasn’t grown over the past 50 years, Gordon said. “If you look at people put a shingle roof on a house, they still do it with nails and hammers,” Gordon said.Aren’t products today higher quality? There has been an increase in the quality of some products over time, which means looking at costs from the 1950s vs. today can seem like an apples-to-oranges comparison. One can make the argument that cars are equipped with better features than ones from the ‘50s. “We have all kinds of things like seat belts and anti-lock brakes and computerized systems in your dashboard,” Stapleford said. But if you’re trying to determine affordability, you have to look at the options that are available to you at the time. “If someone wanted a 1950 car, they couldn't get it. You couldn't go out and buy a car that's exactly the same as it was in the 1950s. You don't have that kind of discretion as a consumer. You're sort of stuck with what's available on the market. So you're then forced, in a way, to buy this higher-quality thing, which you may or may not want,” Stapleford said.If you’re comparing housing prices, you also have to look at changes in the types of homes people are buying. A typical home in the 1950s could cost around $7,000 a year vs. about $400,000 now, said David Reiss, a law professor at Cornell University who studies housing policy. But while today’s price is 57 times more the cost of a house in the 1950s, you have to adjust for inflation and look at the size of these homes. The average house is now much bigger, Reiss pointed out. So based on square footage, a home today is actually probably four or five times more expensive than one in the 1950s, Reiss said. They also have more amenities, he pointed out. “The quality of the housing has gone up dramatically, and that's probably reflected in the price to some extent,” Reiss said. But there are still other factors explaining the increase in price, which include construction productivity and supply and demand. There are people who will pay $1 million for an apartment with a leaky roof because of the area it’s in, Reiss said. In a lot of areas with job opportunities, the regulations that govern new construction are very strict, which contributes to these high prices, Reiss said. Many Americans feel like homeownership has become increasingly out of reach. There was less income inequality in the mid-20th century compared to now, Reiss said. In 1950, the household median income was $2,990, with the median home value about 2.5 times that. In 2024, the median sales price was almost five times the median household income. There is one big caveat: Reiss noted that the housing market was “incredibly discriminatory” against different groups like Black Americans. But for those who didn’t face unjust policies, homeownership was more affordable. “Now you have extreme wealth at the one end, and some very low incomes at the bottom end,” Reiss said.