by Kelly Lawler
USA Today
These days it’s more like who wants to be a multimillionaire, am I right?
Times have changed ever since game shows and reality competition series like “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “Survivor” started doling out $1 million prizes to winners more than two decades ago. But the series still offer the same seven-figure prize, even though a million bucks just ain’t what it used to be.
Inflation and massive cost-of-living increases in the United States have been dramatic, and these series simply haven’t kept up. So that million-dollar question that Regis Philbin asked contestants back in 1999 paid a lot more than the one Jimmy Kimmel asks celebrities in the latest prime-time incarnation of “Millionaire” this summer (Wednesdays, 8 EDT/PDT).