In the movie “Risky Business” (1983) prostitute Lana (Rebecca DeMornay) charges $300/night for her services. I don’t know much about the pricing of such things, but can anyone translate that into modern currency, and also give an idea where it would place her in the spectrum of prostitutes in 1983? The movie gives the impression she is middle to high class but I’m curious what her pay would have meant in the real world.
Using the first inflation calculator that pops up in a Google search, that comes out to roughly $638 in today’s money. If that’s a per hour rate that’s pretty high for a prostitute (i.e. definitely “high class”). But sometimes they have “overnight” rates which are quite a bit more expensive and it wouldn’t really be that much in that case.
Uh… if you want a cite, you can always do research by looking on any number of websites that offer these kind of services (they are ubiquitous and easy to find).
That gives a framework for the value of the money, but I don’t know if modern craigslist pricing gives a good idea of cost, there are so many variables that have changed. Anyone know a someone who was a Chicago Vice cop in the 80’s?
In Super Freakonomics, they profile a Chicago call girl who in 2007 was charging $500/hr. She had been charging $300/hr, but began bumping the price up by $50 every few months until she thought she would hit a drop-off in business, which never occurred.
She eventually returned to college to study Economics.
I think you mean study Economics formally. As they said about Lana in “Risky Business”:
“What a capitalist”
She probably should have been teaching it, at that point.