Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A survey by Visa says that the recession has caused a drop in the average amount the Tooth Fairy pays for a tooth, from $3 to $2.60. Jon Chait comments:

Clearly this is a prime expenditure to cut back when you’re feeling strapped. But $2.60 seems really high to me. My kids each lost a tooth the other night — actually within seconds of each other, strangely enough — and I gave them each a dollar. I thought it seemed high. When I was a kid I got a coin — either a dime or a quarter, I can’t recall which.

I don’t remember either. But let’s say it was a dime back in 1965, my prime tooth-losing year, which is roughly the same as a quarter in 1979, Chait’s prime year. Adjusted for CPI, that only comes to about 75 cents today, which does indeed make three bucks seem pretty high. On the other hand, that dime in 1965 represented 0.00028% of per-capita GDP, which comes to about $1.40 today. Or maybe income is a better measure. In 1965, a quarter represented 0.0078% of the median income. The equivalent today would be about a dollar.

That’s quite a range, which just goes to show that it’s harder to figure out this stuff than you’d think. In any case, an exodontic payoff of about a dollar or so is definitely in the same range as my dime or Chait’s quarter. His kids have no reason to feel ripped off. I am, however, now suspicious of Visa’s survey methodology. I know my readers are hardly a cross section of America, but how much do you give your kids for a tooth under the pillow?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate