Context:
In 1960, the $400 that Roger gave Peggy is the equivalent of roughly $3000 in today's coin. First, this gives us two points of context for Roger
1) That when he gave Harry $1100 to switch offices with Pete, it was roughly $8000 (hence Harry's exclamation of "you walk around with $1100 in your pocket?"
2) If it wasn't out of the ordinary for Roger to have that much money on him, only having $400 left at the end of the day seems pretty extravagant.
It also gives far more context to the scene where Peggy leaves her purse on the coffee table. It had potentially two months salary in it!
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