Comment by r_smart
9 years ago
No, the inflation adjusted value allows a person reading it to compare it to the buying power of the time they live in to understand how much money it actually was. Having a monetary figure expressed in a time other than as an analog to the present reduces the usefulness of the figure.
I'll take facts over context, but would be happy with both. I'm fully capable of figuring out the inflation adjusted number, but now we don't actually know what they were paid.
I also guarantee you they we will see secondary reporting of this article, and the 50k number will be in it, and the inflation adjusted/today's dollars piece will get lost.
If you can convert inflation adjusted to today's money, why can't you do it backwards?
To your second point, you're probably right. Journalism is in a sad state these days.
It's not that you can't work in reverse and get an estimate, its just that you can't know if it is accurate. What if the journalist made a mistake in their inflation calculation?
They are clearly rounding to the inflation adjusted number, and we don't know what year they received payment.
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