A Cessna 150 rented for $10 and hour and instructor was $5. My salary was $1.25 an hour. Working a 40 hour week, my paycheck covered 4 hours solo per week (sales tax was 3%). Avgas was hitting 30 cents a gallon. Work the percentages to your weekly paycheck today and see what you come up with. Note that I lived at home, attended local college on a limited schedule while building time. Hitchhiking was the norm. Our instructors were much more qualified than what you see today; many of them were WW2 aviators. We were sponges for these mentors. I was very lucky.