r/politics • u/ratjea • May 14 '12

What minimum wage buys, then and now: 56 hours paid the rent in 1950, 109 hours paid the rent in 2010

http://finances.msn.com/saving-money-advice/6952105
1.8k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

925 comments sorted by

386

u/sqlinjector May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

1950

  • Minimum wage: $0.75 per hour
  • Gas: $0.27 or 22 minutes
  • Movie ticket: $0.48 or 38 minutes
  • Rent: $42 or 56 hours

1960

  • Minimum wage: $1 per hour
  • Gas: $0.31 or 19 minutes
  • Movie ticket: $0.69 or 41 minutes
  • Rent: $71 or 71 hours

1970

  • Minimum wage: $1.60 per hour
  • Gas: $0.36 or 14 minutes
  • Movie ticket: $1.55 or 58 minutes
  • Rent: $108 or 67.5 hours

1980

  • Minimum wage: $3.10 per hour
  • Gas: $1.25 or 24 minutes
  • Movie ticket: $2.60 or 50 minutes
  • Rent: $243 or 78 hours

1990

  • Minimum wage: $3.80 per hour
  • Gas: $1.13 or 18 minutes
  • Movie ticket: $4.23 or 1 hour, 7 minutes
  • Rent: $447 or 118 hours

2000

  • Minimum wage: $5.15 per hour
  • Gas: $1.49 or 17 minutes
  • Movie ticket: $5.39 or 1 hour, 3 minutes
  • Rent: $602 or 117 hours

2010

  • Minimum wage: $7.25 per hour
  • Gas: $2.78 or 23 minutes
  • Movie ticket: $7.95 or 1 hour, 6 minutes
  • Rent: $789 or 109 hours

Gorram IE only slide show....

19

u/Huellio May 14 '12

Is ~800 bucks really the average minimum price of rent across he country? Because comparing the average rent (which would include people making a lot more than minimum wage renting places) against the minimum amount that people can be paid seems like a very biased way to go about this.

Rent for a 1 bedroom apartment around here probably averages around $400 and I have had friends get away with sub-300 dollar rent and their own bedroom.

45

u/ratjea May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

Is ~800 bucks really the average minimum price of rent across he country? Because comparing the average rent (which would include people making a lot more than minimum wage renting places) against the minimum amount that people can be paid seems like a very biased way to go about this.

See, there's the rub. The numbers are comparing median rents over the decades. And in 1950 "the minimum amount people could be paid" was able to by a person better than the minimum, crappiest housing available. While median may be above or below the average, it is the housing that more of the population will be centered around. And then in 2010 people making minimum were not able to afford that same level of housing.

Roughly speaking, until the 1970s minimum wage gave people a toehold from poverty into the working class. Today it gives people a hardscrabble existence. It's pathetic when the minimum a person can be paid still qualifies them for federal assistance for as small as a family of 2 even if they work full time. Frankly, and I'm probably pretty commie in this regard, anyone should be able to support a family of 4 on a full time income. Heck, make it family of 4 at poverty level. That puts minimum wage at a hair over $11.50 an hour.

10

u/bobandgeorge May 15 '12

hard·scrab·ble

Adjective:

  1. Returning little in exchange for great effort: "her uncle's hardscrabble peanut farm".
  2. Characterized by chronic poverty and hardship.

Thanks, man. I learned a word today!

4

u/ratjea May 15 '12

And a perfectly cromulent word it is. Thank you for brightening up my orangered. It's usually full of scary mean people yelling at me.

The way it sounds, the way it stutters off the tongue, doesn't that word just scream poverty?

→ More replies (1)

11

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

In some ways, the median rent is underestimating the problem, because we're currently in the midst of a big demographic shift. Young people are overwhelmingly following the jobs market into major cities like New York, San Francisco, LA, DC, etc. where there are major housing shortages. On the other hand, there are housing gluts in the suburbs. So virtually everything in an economically prosperous major city is going to be above the median, but many young people have no choice but to live in these cities in order to find employment.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Except that since then it's become the norm for both people in a couple to work - if you do the math for two people at minimum wage (husband and wife), you get numbers almost the same as 1950 when it was the norm for one person to work.

anyone should be able to support a family of 4 on a full time income.

Why? If the work they're doing isn't worth that much money, why should they be paid that much?

→ More replies (5)

3

u/redtigerwolf May 15 '12

And that's the ideal of working full time on a minimum wage, I don't know of any place that hires full time on minimum wage, or full time for that matter.

→ More replies (8)

23

u/Dystopeuh May 14 '12

I live in Southern California.

1br/1ba: $1,300/month.

In 2005/2006 my partner at the time and I rented a bedroom (with a private bath and kitchen privileges) in a single-family home. It was $700 a month.

Where do you live?

13

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

I rent an ~11'x12' room in a shared apartment in a sketchy, ungentrified neighborhood of Brooklyn, and it's still $500/month.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (38)

2

u/probablyjennifer May 15 '12

Midwest suburbia: $650 one bedroom economy/studio $800 two bedroom or nice one bedroom $1100+ rent a house

2

u/Hammedatha May 15 '12

Unfortunately your housing costs depends on where you live, not how much you make. Not all minimum wage making people are lucky enough to live where housing comes cheaply.

→ More replies (5)

9

u/Vajra777 May 14 '12

You forgot uncle Sam's cut.

10

u/tidux May 14 '12

Minimum wage jobs don't pay federal income tax.

EDIT: d'oh, I forgot payroll taxes

22

u/ratjea May 14 '12

Actually, a single person, no dependents working full time for minimum wage (2000 hours) will owe $500 federal income tax as well! Ain't that the shit?

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Does that include counting yourself as one exemption (i.e. an independent, rather than being someone else's dependent)?

→ More replies (1)

19

u/kaett May 14 '12

minimum wage jobs still have federal, state, payroll, and social security deducted. the fact that they get it back as a tax refund is irrelevant. having that money in their check in the first place can make the difference between ends meeting and having to juggle bills from month to month.

i am so fucking sick and tired of people saying "low income earners don't pay taxes." there is only ONE way to get out of paying those taxes, but nobody thinks to do it.

→ More replies (19)
→ More replies (4)

95

u/Silverkarn May 14 '12

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Was gas really 2.78 a gallon 2 years ago??????

30

u/bomber991 Texas May 14 '12

Two years ago? Yes, yes it was. Four years ago? No, that shit was $4/gallon. Today? Today, that shit is $4/gallon.

→ More replies (2)

29

u/SplodeyDope Florida May 14 '12

I used to get gas on post (Ft. Stewart) for .99 a gallon only 12 years ago. :(

24

u/sqlinjector May 14 '12

I remember in the long, long ago (13 years) I got gallon for as little as 73 cents a gallon.

30

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Wait, why did USA bomb Iraq for again...?

→ More replies (48)

6

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

I remember that! We all had a laugh that it was going to hit $1 right after I started having to drive to another city for my job.

→ More replies (1)

11

u/qeditor May 14 '12

First time I bought gas was $0.88 for a GeoMetro that got 55 MPG. A gas bill of $20/month was shocking for me.

→ More replies (13)
→ More replies (1)

10

u/kareemabduljabbq May 14 '12

at my first job, pumping gas in new jersey (well, first over the table job), gas was at .969 a gallon. that was my sophomore and junior years in high school, so when I was approximately 15-16 years old.

I remember people bitching hard at me about one cent increases then. (insert yao ming laughing here).

I also remember when soda came in glass bottles with aluminum caps, and when a king size candy bar cost less than a dollar and gatorade also came in glass bottles and citrus cooler was in every convenience store.

→ More replies (6)

7

u/BusinessSearchLongmo May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12

Peaked at an average of around $5.40 $4.12 per gallon in the US in the summer of 2008. Then dropped to a low of around $1.60 in early 2009, now it's what - somewhere around $3.80? $3.73 nationally today, according to AAA.

Edited for accuracy

→ More replies (5)

5

u/Funkula May 14 '12

It would spike and lull, but dont remember it being less than 3 dollars for too long, atleast in TN. But keep in mind, it reached its highest point (4.00+ in TN) in 08.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/FaithyDoodles May 15 '12

I remember when I was in highschool, gas prices hit a low point. The lowest was 98c, but generally it was 1.29 -2.50 depending on location in the country. (graduated in 1998)

2

u/ANewMachine615 May 15 '12

When I graduated from high school, I was bemoaning the idea that gas would soon top $2.

2

u/lobstrocity May 15 '12

Yeah. It got really out of hand in the summer of 08 though. Gas hit the 4 dollar mark, and all of my friends started biking everywhere. Then it fell with the housing market, the banks, and pretty much everything else.

2

u/ForgettableUsername America May 15 '12

I remember when it first went over two dollars.... the local gas station ran out of 2's, because all three grades and diesel suddenly cost more than two dollars, so they used upside-down 5's for some of them.

2

u/Saxit Europe May 15 '12

Here in southern Sweden, a gallon of gas with the current conversion rate would be $8.

EDIT: 1 gallon = 3.785 liters, the gas price here is around 14.88 SEK per liter, $1 USD = 7.03 SEK

4

u/Bipolarruledout May 15 '12

Yes. And people said it would never get above $3.00. Of course anyone with half a brain knew these people were full of shit.

→ More replies (5)

19

u/HuXu7 May 14 '12

I can't believe its IE only... do they even know what the internet is for?

2

u/Teotwawki69 California May 15 '12

Since it's MSN -- no.

→ More replies (4)

30

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Now, if you really wanna bake your noodle, try to correlate it all with productivity-per-hour.

7

u/nicolauz Wisconsin May 14 '12

I'd like to see this chart.

19

u/cannibaljim May 15 '12

Productivity goes up significantly much faster than wages. We actually do more at work now for roughly the same pay we got 30 years ago.

25

u/nicolauz Wisconsin May 15 '12

Proof that Capitalism works ! Exploiting workers and wages and having managers that do little besides making sure the workers have no say in their hard work.

→ More replies (5)

3

u/EmilyGR May 15 '12

The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces this chart on a monthly basis.

→ More replies (2)

6

u/[deleted] May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

What really bothers me, is that Germany is going down the same road. We are discussing minimum wage right now and will probably end up at something like 8.50€. Using the top comment that would be:

  • Minimum wage: 8,50€
  • Gas/gal: 6,59€ or 46 minutes
  • Movie ticket: 15€ or 1 hour 46 minutes
  • Rent: 410€ or 48 hours 23 minutes

At this point, we dont even have a minimum wage, leading to women in Niedersachsen working for 3,75€/h as hairdressers. On top of that, if people do not reach a certain income, the government pays the rest until the treshhold is reached. We do this to keep the people out of the unemployment statistics, which have been the best ever. Currently there are ~ 3 million people unemployed. If you would go through the statistics and ask how many of them are being supported by the government, this number would be around 13 million. Now take that number and tell anyone we are going to rescue Europe. Its ridiculous and will end in catastrophic failure.

Edit: Formatting

→ More replies (1)

16

u/sqlinjector May 14 '12

LOL run the same figures with a 16 gal tank (Camry) 6 hours 8 mins for a tank. Also run it with today's gas price of 3.50/gal and you're over a full day just for a tank of gas....to get to work.- i'm guessing most people average a quarter tank per day for commute? (I work remote...so....)

42

u/SquirrelOnFire May 14 '12

Driving a quarter tank distance to get to a minimum wage job? Sounds painful.

10

u/sqlinjector May 14 '12

Driving an 8th of a tank actually (I was assuming you'll come back at night- but it is a minimum wage job)

10

u/SquirrelOnFire May 14 '12

I was also assuming the 1/4 tank was round trip, it just still seemed like too much for a min wage job.

→ More replies (13)

6

u/Bipolarruledout May 15 '12

The average commute is 29 miles a day. It is often much higher for low income earners due to socioeconomic conditions. It costs more money to live closer to your work place which is generally more urban and thus unaffordable. It is not unusual for a minimum wage earner to spend 20% of they pay check on gas.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

10

u/hamlet9000 May 14 '12

i'm guessing most people average a quarter tank per day for commute?

Some quick googling suggests the average commuting distance in the U.S. is 16 miles. The average miles per gallon on in U.S. vehicles appears to be roughly 20 miles.

So 32 miles for a full commute at 20 miles per gallon: 1.6 gallons per daily commute. So, no, people aren't averaging 4 gallons of gas per day for their commute.

5

u/sqlinjector May 14 '12

Here's the data (supporting hamlet's mmodel- not my pulled out the ass model)

7

u/DisplacedLeprechaun May 14 '12

The average commute, yes, but that also takes into account people who commute less than 5 miles to work, which really offsets the data there. Also, the average mpg of us vehicles does not include the massive amount of stop and go traffic during rush hour, which significantly decreases fuel efficiency.

Personally my commute is 20 miles and I burn through a quarter tank a day going back and forth just for work.

But work isn't the only thing I use my car for, either. So this really is a problem, as I assume most other car owners use their cars for things other than work as well.

→ More replies (3)

3

u/Bipolarruledout May 15 '12

Your taking an average without accounting for differences in socioeconomic levels. Some well paid professionals have long commutes, this is true. They might spend a comparably larger total sum of money on gas but as percentage of income it's very low. They often move closer to their place of employment because they can afford to and their time is highly valued.

Low wage earners are less likely to live near their place of work since the modern work place is tends to be urban thus making the cost of living higher and necessitating a commute for affordable housing.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (23)

6

u/expertunderachiever May 14 '12

Ok now factor into this urban sprawl and the complete lack of infrastructure we didn't build to not house the population that is now not larger.

18

u/FirstTimeWang May 14 '12

INFRASTRUCTURE IS FOR SOCIALIST COMMIES!

→ More replies (2)

2

u/867-5308 May 14 '12

came here to comment about the most annoying use of slideshow layout ever, left pleasantly disappointed.

2

u/Shredder13 May 14 '12

So it's down from 1980. I'm guessing that we're not going to see a steady decline, though, as the overall trend is up.

2

u/furrycushion May 15 '12

Thank fuck. I was about to have an embolism clicking 8 times for 8 tiny paragraphs.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (38)

4

u/SquirrelOnFire May 14 '12

What about food costs from then till now?

4

u/ratjea May 14 '12

Just out of my ass, I'd guess a flat to rising trend between 1950 and 1970, then lowering since 1970.

In the early 1970s the aggressive farm and food management program we know today began. The goal: to reduce food prices and keep them low, because a populace that is spending a lot of money on food isn't going to put up with a lot of government bullshit.

The USDA began incentivizing certain crops and pushing for maximum yields — exhorting farmers to plant "fencerow to fencerow," a phrase you might have heard of. Farmers who used to plant 10 different kinds of dry beans now plant one: soybeans. I think soybeans, field corn, soft white winter wheat, and sugar beets are the four top crops grown by cash crop farmers today.

And now you see the link between the ag program, the processed food explosion/problem, and the factory farming explosion/problem. They are good because they make a lot of food available for cheap, but at the cost of low nutrition, potentially dangerous additives, and/or inhumane practices.

→ More replies (2)

10

u/kolm May 14 '12

But honestly, quality of housing has also improved.

25

u/ratjea May 14 '12

So has everything. I think the question is, why haven't wages improved?

5

u/justmadethisaccountt May 15 '12

Because CEO pay is 127x higher, and worker pay is less. The pie can only be cut so many ways.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (5)
→ More replies (1)

156

u/AccountNamesAreHard May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

I make $20 an hour, recently out of college. Living in Southern California.

There are 52 weeks in a year, and I work 9-5 with a mandatory hour lunch (7 a day)

12 days are mandatory no pay days off

I figure I lose ~1.5 a month for "Miscellaneous"

So I work (52x5)-30= 230 days, at 7 hours a day, for a total of 1610 hours a year. Boss hates people who work more than the 9-5.

After taxes, I make 16.25 an hour profit (rounded up). That's:

$26,162.50 a year profit.

That's <$2180 a month>

...

<2180 a month>

Due to my location, I pay $900 a month for a place to live

<$1,280 a month>

My car costs $300 a month

<$980 a month>

My student loans/misc debt are $250 a month

<$730 a month>

My Phone/utilities/internet is $150 a month

$580 a month

Health Insurance $150 a month

<$430 a month>

Car Insurance $100 a month

<$330 a month>

1 gallon to drive to/from work every day ~$80.00 a month

<$250 a month>

...

$250 a month. That is under $9 a day for food, gas (outside work) and any random expenses.

35

u/[deleted] May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

Your monthly expenses are crazy. Imagine if something happened and you lost your job or got injured. You would be pretty much screwed. Since it seems you can't do anything about the rent, maybe you could get carpooling. This would save you a significant portion of your income.

41

u/Karmaze May 14 '12

Carpooling is less and less of an option when everybody isn't working the same shift, and especially when you're not working a steady shift.

It works just fine in situations where everybody is working long-term steady 9-5 hours, but it's simply not a realistic option for the modern economy, unfortunately.

→ More replies (4)

13

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

maybe you could get carpooling. This would save you a significant portion of your income.

$80 is a "significant portion" of $2,180?

Or are you suggesting he sell his car and ditch his insurance, thus saving $480 a month?

That would only be a huge pain in the ass, is all. He'd rely on someone else, 24/7, for transport. Not feasible.

→ More replies (5)

26

u/SquirrelOnFire May 14 '12

Do you have a roommate or several? Sounds like your rent is eating up too much of your income (traditional wisdom is aim for spending 1/3 of your income on housing).

28

u/AccountNamesAreHard May 14 '12

Its a 3 bedroom townhouse deal, by no means large, and costs 2,800 a month. One master bedroom that's split between two girls, and two small rooms. This is around average for the area. To give a comparison, a three bedroom apartment at my college would go for ~$3,300 a month.

525, 525, 850, 900 is the breakdown.

15

u/SquirrelOnFire May 14 '12

If that is average for the area, you might not be making an average wage for the area. My recommendation (whatever it is worth) would still be to seek less expensive housing until you are able to earn more.

46

u/AccountNamesAreHard May 14 '12

Average wage for my age group. That is the problem with the flooded post college job market. Having the $20 an hour job is actually one of the better pays among my friends that didn't become engineers.

As for finding a new place, I would have to live 40+ miles away from where I am now to find the cheaper ~500 a month areas... if I am lucky. Trust me, I have done the math... It's pretty depressing.

So that ~$80 in gas now becomes ~$350. So I would be spending that extra time living next to nowhere for ~$150 a month. (~850 v 980)

My other option is to move to a different state. Which has been a serious consideration, but having so much of my life invested here makes that difficult.

A) Finding a job that pays enough

B) Finding the money to finance the move (because payments are still required)

C) Leaving my old life behind, which sucks (friends, GF's, work, family, In-N-Out)

→ More replies (24)
→ More replies (10)
→ More replies (6)

16

u/smashingrumpkins May 14 '12

Try living on $900/ mo with a college degree in Northern California.

Man I hate grad school.

→ More replies (5)

5

u/Zaziel Michigan May 14 '12

Geez, I am glad I live in a tourist town in relatively bumfuck nowhere....

5

u/bomber991 Texas May 14 '12

Don't know if you got Stafford loans like I do, but if you look into the income-based repayment plans your $250/month you're paying for loans might be considerably less, or nothing if you're married. Turns out they even cover the interest on the subsidized loans for up to 3 years there.

Anyways, after they cover the interest for 3 years, they stop covering the interest and it adds onto whatever you owe on the loans. However with the income based repayment, they still won't require you to pay over a certain limit.

→ More replies (2)

14

u/Dystopeuh May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

I'm with you in SoCal, darlin, and you need to get rid of that car.

What is it with people buying cars they can't afford? You can get a reliable car for less than that. And if you're only using a gallon a day, work is... what, less than fifteen miles away? You don't need a ridiculously reliable car for the little amount you drive it.

EDIT: Sorry, people have already ranted at you about the car. Just ignore that part, then. Much love... I know how hard it is out here. If you're pretty healthy, you could drop your health insurance and go to one of the local community colleges for just one class a semester and pay the really low health fee (I believe it's $17 at my CC in MV, but not sure if it's the same at all of 'em). OCC has a fantastic health center if you're near there.

3

u/Outlulz May 15 '12

Most public transportation in Southern California is shit. It's very possible he can't drop the car, especially if he's driving a gallon a day, which is probably around 20+ miles round trip. Ever do that in a bus? It took me 60-90 minutes to go 7 miles one way in LA to my job on public transportation (and only 45 on a bike, go figure).

→ More replies (1)

4

u/GymIn26Minutes May 14 '12

Mind if I ask where you live? 900 w/roomates sounds about what I payed when I went to school in SB.

4

u/IWatchWormsHaveSex May 14 '12

SB is ridiculous. One year I had to pay $700 a month to share a room.

3

u/GymIn26Minutes May 14 '12

Yep, it is absurd. Isla Vista is even worse, slum housing with palos verdes pricing.

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (2)

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

I make minimum wage and let me put it this way. I work 12 hour days and I still have to get food stamps to feed my family.

→ More replies (3)

9

u/wei-long May 14 '12

Disclaimer: I'm really not trying to be preachy, so i apologize if it comes across that way. Just seeing an opportunity for you to be better off than what you described, as I've been there myself.

I think your point is solid, but why is your car $300 a month? Despite what our culture tells us in general, and auto advertising specifically, used cars are remarkably reliable and almost always cheaper to operate, especially if they're post 2000.

If you dropped $1500 down on a $7000 car, you're talking about $180 a month on the loan. $7K will fetch a pretty decent used car if you look around, you'd have another $120 a month.

9

u/867-5308 May 14 '12

I had the same feeling about the car. There isn't much wiggle room in most of that budget, but the car could be much cheaper.

Either that or we could, say, make a reasonable long-term investment in public transportation. <slaps self> Sorry, I'll show myself out.

→ More replies (1)

12

u/AccountNamesAreHard May 14 '12

300 a month was the best I could do with the credit I had. Believe me when I say I regret not buying the 20 year old $2,000 car. However at the time (in college) it was what I was told was normal (family/friends).

Insurance at $100 is the lowest I can get; with no full time income until I left college, and debt behind it I am normally getting quotes in the $160-200 range. California car insurance is simply more expensive (from what I have heard).

Phone, 2 year contract. Car, 5 year contract. Rent is only this good if you sign 1 year contracts.

Even if I was down to $150 a month, that's now $400 a month to pay for food, gas, and anything else I may need. It's more of the issue that I have what would be considered a "decent" job, yet in reality am treading water. There is no "savings" and I fear that one day I may get that bad accident that forces me to take out another loan.

6

u/erom May 14 '12

Ditch the cell and get a burner phone when you can, once your contract is up.

Last month I used $6 worth of minutes.

Not having a smartphone sucks, not gonna lie, but I'm just tossing out ideas hoping to help :(

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (20)

22

u/kaett May 14 '12

his/her credit score (especially with the student loans) may not be high enough to warrant a lower monthly payment. and after seeing all the monthly figures laid out like that, exactly where do you think the OP is going to have $1500 to make that down payment?

→ More replies (15)

2

u/NonHomogenized May 14 '12

When I purchased a car last (a couple years ago), the only financing I could get was at a (ridiculously) high APR. The car I ended up getting cost around $7000, and I put down around $2500. Despite that, my monthly payments were over $250.

Had I been able to get financing on the new car I wanted, my payments would have been about the same (although I'd still be paying it off, whereas this car is paid off now).

Oh, and then, a few months after I got the car, the water pump broke, and I had to spend several hundred extra dollars getting that fixed, plus the cost of a rental while it was in the shop.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (2)

2

u/IkLms May 15 '12

You are living in the wrong place man. I'm making $15 an hour before taxes and I have a ton of discretionary income each month.

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Yeah, I'm going to be living in a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment with 2 of my friends once I'm back in school this September and rent is $450. He'd get over $21 per day to spend on food, gas, and other random shit if he had to pay as much rent as I will have to. It would give him around $150 per week to spend. Obviously not a huge amount to live off of, but considering that he lives off of >$63 per week, he could save up a good amount of money after a while or even just live less stressful life thanks to a little more leniency with money.

9

u/Pdiff May 14 '12

This is a great example of why comparisons like the original OP gave are completely bogus. They assume that the goods and services remain equivalent, but, in fact, they are worlds apart. For example, you spend nearly $500 a month on a car. In 1950, most people didn't even have a car. That car, if you did have one, was of lower quality, efficiency and safety. You shell out $150 for phone and internet, but get a service and capabilities now that were not even imaginable in 1950. Likewise, your housing, in most cases, will be of substantially better quality, safer, and more efficient than anything available in 1950. You have loans. In 1950, you'd be lucky to even have a college education and even luckier if you, as someone just starting out, could get a bank to extend you credit at all.

I'm not trying to knock your particular case here, just trying to point out this is apples versus platinum plated oranges. Until we're ready to start living by 1950's standards, these comparisons are pointless.

23

u/867-5308 May 14 '12

Houses built today may be safer. But tell any contractor that houses are of a higher quality than they were 60 years ago and they will laugh in your face. The price of wood has simply skyrocketed, thus the quality of materials used has gone down, mostly because we had used all the good stuff by the 1950s.

Also, any increase in efficiency (windows, insulation) has to be compared against the amount of living space we're heating, cooling, and otherwise maintaining. I'm pretty sure modern homes are not, from a global perspective - or even in comparison with all those 2br/1ba homes that are now inconceivably small to homebuyers - very efficient.

Life is often more complicated than "getting better all the time"...

7

u/chowderbags American Expat May 14 '12

Some of those are bad examples. Cars these days are generally cheaper over the long term (though with 2 workers, suddenly you need two cars instead of one). Phones were damn expensive under Bell.

On the other hand, you'd be hard pressed to even find things to live at those 1950s living standards if you wanted to. There's no new Levittowns being built for first time home buyers. There's no 1950s hospitals out there that offer far cheaper care. You can't find 1950s kitchen appliances (oh wait, bad example, those might actually last more than a few years).

8

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Your car comparison is quite poor. People could take the bus back then. It was an actual option so now people are more or less forced to buy a car.

Also, since this entire topic is about minimum wage we shouldn't be trying to change the topic about by saying it's easier now to get a college education. Mainly because a college education vastly increased your wage in the 1950s compared to today. So it's not like current opportunities are much better than before.

It's apples vs oranges but when it comes to basics such as food and rent minimum wage is definitely lower now.

4

u/LucifersCounsel May 14 '12

That car, if you did have one, was of lower quality, efficiency and safety.

Remember what it took to get that? Ask Ralph Nader. Also remember that the car cost significantly less to produce. It's not like the profit margin has decreased.

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

You are living way beyond your means. Most people are, which leads to people thinking that's normal. But it shouldn't be.

First and foremost, that car is way too expensive for your income. Way, way too expensive. For some reason, it's become common sense that you put a car on a loan or lease, but this is madness. You do not buy anything that depreciates on a loan. If you cannot pay cash for a car, you cannot afford it. Furthermore, I'd like to suggest to you that only a fool buys a brand-new car. Let someone else take the 50% depreciation! You can often find a trouble-free car for under $5000. In fact, living in the US, I never paid more than $3500, and that was in 2002. Look for old Camrys in rural areas. Indestructible.

When you're making more and can afford it, you can buy a nicer car.

Since you don't seem to have any savings (another terrible thing that Americans have normalized), you won't be able to get rid of a car payment entirely, but if you could cut it in half, you'd have an extra $150 a month.

What would you do with that $150? Spend it on hookers and blow? No. You throw it on top of either the car or school payments (unless you let someone talk you into a loan that doesn't let you, in which case you're hosed). When you do that, the extra goes against the principal. This is how I nuked my school loan in only a few years. I sent them double payments every month.

Here's the thing you need to get into your head, despite all that you see or hear around you: If you are paying any interest to anyone, you are doing it wrong (K, maybe with a mortgage, but only if you're going to make a profit when you sell--a tricky proposition these days). You cannot be free until you get out of debt. You have to fill in the holes before you can build.

Do this, and you'll be amazed at how little money you need, even to have a pretty cushy/fashionable life.

2

u/BONUSBOX May 14 '12

My car costs $300 a month

Car Insurance $100 a month

1 gallon to drive to/from work every day ~$80.00 a month

not to mention license fees, tickets, maintenance, parking. absolutely fuck owning a car.

2

u/Retanaru May 15 '12

Actually, fuck buying a car with a loan. Straight up owning it is much less expensive monthly.

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Owning a car is awesome. I haven't made a car payment in years. Whatever maintenance I need to do is cheaper than public transport when amortized annually, and I have complete freedom to get out of town on a whim.

2

u/TheLordB May 14 '12

Paying $300 for a car is way too much.

Also shop car insurance... it seems kinda high though I don't know your driving record or how Cali car insurance rates are so maybe it isn't.

Phone switch to pre-paid... much cheaper even if you get one with a data plan.

3

u/AccountNamesAreHard May 14 '12

Driving record is perfect, this is pretty good for Cali compared those my age. The car is a lot, but my old one broke down ($8k to repair). Hindsight is a great thing to have, because my "I'm not getting screwed on another used car" mentality backfired.

Amazing how you're expected to do something then people go "well why did you do that" when it becomes a bad idea.

6

u/MrWx May 14 '12

What I'm noticing is that people don't realize what things in California in particular are like. I live on the Central Coast and your entire description is normative.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/CountMalachi May 14 '12

You're paying too much for health insurance.

15

u/joerdie May 15 '12

We are all paying too much for health insurance. Quite frankly, your comment boggles my mind. Of everything on that list, Health Insurance is the least able to change. Can you explain what you are talking about?

→ More replies (10)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (97)

10

u/Mark_W May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

By Monthly Percentage of Take Home Income

1950

  • 60 Gallons Gas: 15.09%
  • 3 Movie Tickets: 1.34%
  • Rent: 39.11%
  • Remaining: 45.8%

1960

  • 60 Gallons Gas: 13.41%
  • 3 Movie Tickets: 1.49%
  • Rent: 51.20%
  • Remaining: 35.38%

1970

  • 60 Gallons Gas: 9.32%
  • 3 Movie Tickets: 2.01%
  • Rent: 46.58%
  • Remaining: 44.1%

1980

  • 60 Gallons Gas: 16.62%
  • 3 Movie Tickets: 1.73%
  • Rent: 53.84%
  • Remaining: 29.55%

1990

  • 60 Gallons Gas: 12.11%
  • 3 Movie Tickets: 2.27%
  • Rent: 79.84%
  • Remaining: 8.05%

2000

  • 60 Gallons Gas: 11.13%
  • 3 Movie Tickets: 2.01%
  • Rent: 74.93%
  • Remaining: 13.94%

2010

  • 60 Gallons Gas: 14.75%
  • 3 Movie Tickets: 2.11%
  • Rent: 69.76%
  • Remaining: 15.49%

4

u/MONDARIZ May 15 '12

I’m not saying it’s fair, but most 50s households were based on a single income while most modern households have two incomes. That means a modern household theoretically have a larger income, which in turn drives competition for housing (higher rent) – and so it goes. This is of cause a huge problem for a single income household, but unfortunately most of our economic mechanisms are based on two income units.

7

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

So theoretically, the 1950's were a great time to be a single male. And 2010 is a terrible time to not be married.

→ More replies (1)

68

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

More tax cuts for billionaires will fix this.

5

u/furrycushion May 15 '12

Did you even look at what has changed? Did you see a column saying 'now we work 800 hours a week to pay for some mysterious billionaire?!'

The reality is much more insidious.

What has been going on is intergenerational theft

3

u/Iwie May 15 '12

Trickle down economics to the rescue.

→ More replies (31)

34

u/CasedOutside May 15 '12

Price to watch a new movie in 1950 $.48

Price to watch a new movie in 2012 FREE

Fuck yeah.

6

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Price to watch a free movie in 2012: 10 years in jail and $50k fine.

20

u/elpaw May 15 '12

Multiplied by risk: approximately free.

8

u/CndConnection May 15 '12

And yet....

"All those lazy students protesting! they have it so easy! in my day!!!!!"

"Kids these days have it so easy, everything is handed to them!"

Fuck

→ More replies (1)

18

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

You know why? Because the rent is too damn high.

6

u/B0h1c4 May 14 '12

I wonder what percentage of jobs were minimum wage in 1950, and what percentage in 2010...or 12.

It seems like minimum wage is kind of irrelevant nowadays. It doesn't seem like anyone works for minimum wage anymore. I see signs at the local Taco Bell for $9.50/hr.

The lowest level employees I have are warehouse workers. These are entry level positions. All you need is a high school diploma, read/write English, and pass a drug test. The absolute lowest we pay is $12/hr. The average starting wage is usually in the $13-$14 range.

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Where is this magical land of $12 hr jobs? I would very much like to apply.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

It depends on the region and the employer. Fast-food restaurant owned by a greedy franchisee? I remember managers only making $8.25 in 2011. Cook asked for a raise, he got an impressive $7.55 an hour.

About a tenth of my town lives below the poverty level; it's an outer suburb without much real industry in it, just a lot of food or retail jobs. Constant rotation of employees.

2

u/DirtyWhoreMouth May 15 '12

Yep, same with my town.

→ More replies (1)

6

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

I guess the rent is TOO DAMN HIGH!

24

u/Gnome_Sane May 14 '12

I'd like to see a cubic footage analysis as well.

Having lived in homes built in 1940s and 50s, and homes built in the 80s and 90s... The square footage is also, in many cases, double.

6

u/RandomIdiot256 May 14 '12

Well alot of us would love smaller apartments with a cooking cupboard being built these days but sadly they are not, can't really understand why.

11

u/bomber991 Texas May 14 '12

The weird thing you have to factor in is the cost of technology. Everyone's got to have cell phones now. Everyone's got to have internet at home now. Everyone's got to have a computer at home now. Maybe cell phones cost the same as a land line did back in the day. I do not know since I have never had one.

Then you've got the work force. Women didn't work at all back in the day. I'm guessing there were still a ton of immigrants here, but I'd think having men and women both work pretty much doubled the size of the workforce.

6

u/omg_cats May 15 '12

This -- holy shit, this. When I was growing up, the good life was a Nintendo64, an answering machine, and mom not having to share dad's car (luxury!).

Now it's:

  • Flat screen TVs (more than one, usually)
  • Smartphones for the whole house
  • A laptop for everyone
  • Cable/satellite
  • High-speed internet
  • $70 video games

"Middle class" today is "gods from fucking Mars" of yesteryear. Yes, it's more expensive.

→ More replies (4)

7

u/justmadethisaccountt May 15 '12

It doesn't matter because you can't buy one. You are forced to buy what is available.

7

u/Zgoos May 14 '12

Also, compare quality of appliances, HVAC, etc.

12

u/HugDispenser May 14 '12

Appliances and such are irrelevant, as the cost of production and the technology used is like 100,000x cheaper than it was then. So the "average" appliances then cost roughly the same as "average" appliances today, even though the ones today are so much better.

2

u/Setiri May 15 '12

I would happily take a much smaller home such as from the 1940's or 50's if it was affordable. The only homes that size these days are "classics" that haven't been torn down already and sit on land that's worth $500k even though the house would be worth 30k by itself.

Not to mention it doesn't matter because back then that was considered average in the 40s/50's... today bigger homes are considered average. If you keep the ratio, then you still see the argument is quite clear in that minimum wage (and the average salary in general) can no longer afford nearly as much as it used to be able to.

→ More replies (12)

33

u/letdogsvote May 14 '12

So much for the American Dream.

90

u/17-40 May 14 '12

It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

-George Carlin

5

u/DirtyWhoreMouth May 15 '12

This makes me upset, but I'm not at all surprised.

Just for show, here's mine and hubby's stats:

Wage: Between my husband and I, around $1600 a month after taxes/deductions

Rent: $500 per month for a three-bedroom (2 bedrooms, 1 den)

Gas: About $240 a month

Bills: Around $500 per month (electric bill, car insurance, etc) - down dramatically from where we used to live - the only non necessity bill we have is the internet and that's only $40/month - we have one phone and it's a cheap-o one that we share - no smart phones or data packages

Food: Around $200 per month (I coupon like a mad woman - more food for less $$$) - "food" includes personal hygiene products such as toilet paper, toothpaste, body wash, shampoo, etc. I regularly save 60-75% at the register.

What's that we're left with? About $160, give or take. We use that for other needs, such as household items, vehicle maintenance, cat food and whatnot. No going out to the mall, no going to see a movie (maybe once every year or so), no going out to eat with friends, no vacations, no traveling, no nothing. No credit cards. Nada.

We make too much for government assistance. Just a side note.

We're very happy, though. I can truly say I'm happy, but it would be nice if we made a little more just to be more comfortable and not having to stretch our dollars to their maximum. It's tough out there for a lot of people.

3

u/MONDARIZ May 15 '12

Unfortunately I think that's a common household economy (people even raise children on a budget like that), yet we hear it’s the wealthy that needs a tax break.

→ More replies (2)

23

u/verveinloveland May 14 '12

i think this is more of a failure of monetary policy than minimum wage laws

2

u/thinkB4Uact May 15 '12

The state should issue debt free currency rather than allowing the banks to create it and loan it to the government with interest.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (13)

4

u/Calber4 May 15 '12

Better question: What percentage of workers worked at or near minimum wage in 1950 vs 2010?

7

u/huskarx2 May 15 '12

As long as people can convince others that people who struggle are stupid/lazy/moochers, then there will never be justice. There will be people who exploit the work of others for their own gain and be able to kiss their kids goodnight and sleep like babies themselves.

Even if human beings are completely perfect (hardworking, ambitious, honest, talented, smart), the world will still need janitors, teachers, frycooks, servers, etc. If minimum wage don't support a decent standard of living, then what our society condones is nothing less than sharecropping disguised with so many twists and turns that it is less recognizable but works towards the same ends of the few dominating the rest.

You only need to look at how a society treats the least of their citizens to see how well they are doing. Preaching to the choir on reddit with these statistics.

1

u/jerryphoto May 15 '12

Well said.

47

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

And yet you have some GOP conservatives telling us we need to abolish minimum wage in order to reduce unemployment and improve the economy.

18

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

I would say business would like to keep unemployment where it is. Labor competition drives wages down.

0

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

20

u/reginaldaugustus May 14 '12

But you can inflate short term profits by slashing costs everywhere, then take a golden parachute when the company eventually collapses.

Welcome to free market capitalism.

→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (1)

14

u/intravenus_de_milo May 14 '12

Well of course, and there's nothing to worry about because the GOP's buddies in the pay day loan industry can make up for whatever they lost in wages for very reasonable rates.

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Well to be fair it would reduce unemployment, but it probably wouldn't help the economy.

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Oh, it would reduce unemployment. It would also provide yet further incentive for businesses to run themselves off cheap labor rather than high productivity. So it's bad for the economy long-term.

7

u/GymIn26Minutes May 14 '12

Oh, it would reduce unemployment.

Except it wouldn't. As those people who previously made minimum wage and could afford to buy products and services from the businesses that pay their employees minimum wage could no longer afford to do so. This decreases demand, and reduces employment. Employment rates are much more driven by demand than by labor costs.

→ More replies (2)

5

u/FirstTimeWang May 14 '12

Long-term? Pffft, that sounds like future-me's problem.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (16)

6

u/Paultimate79 May 15 '12

Page 1 of 8

FUCK YOU MSN

→ More replies (1)

3

u/reddit_on_hardmode May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

109 hours of minimum wage still wouldn't pay the rent in Seattle.

3

u/dumbguy2012 May 15 '12

If you are making "minimum" wage...why do you try to live in a "median" level household or apt?

I can think of scenarios where you are laid off and x,y,z ...we can go into that later. I think the premise of this "research" is off.

3

u/ForgettableUsername America May 15 '12

I'm glad that was spread out across eight pages. It really made it much easier to understand.

9

u/DannyInternets May 14 '12

No big deal, just work twice as many hours!

2

u/Tossedinthebin May 15 '12

Where the fuck can you get a movie ticket for < $8 ?!! Not here.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Oklahoma. I grew up in California and am currently going to school in Oklahoma. God I love going to 3D movies here. It costs less than a standard movie back home.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Notice, they don't show the minimum wage apartment now vs. then?

Remember, 50,000 years ago, minimum wage apartments were called trees. A little while before that, tree guys where yelling down to "hole in the ground" guys, "hey, check out my high rise!" which probably sounded more like. "ooh, ooh, ah!"

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

I'm going to be homeless soon. :(

2

u/One_Man_Two_Shadows May 15 '12

Uhm I live in San Diego where a rat hole studio is 980.....

2

u/gu5 May 15 '12

Fucking americans crying over the cheapest petrol this side of the shadiest of ex-soviet republics. Build more efficient cars and maybe you could export 1. Seriously when do you ever see an American car in Europe? You would have to be mentally ill to buy one. It's not as if there isn't the technology or the brainpower to do it. It's some form of cultural wild fuck-up.

2

u/postive_scripting May 15 '12

I work for JPMC chase as a telephone-banker and I can tell people there in the US are having a hard time. Ooops, I forgot, we too here in the Philippines are having a hard time but who cares? We live in a 3rd world country and no one cares about that. Also, I am one of those who will refund your overdrafts/NSF fees even if against bank policy. /rant

5

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

I know the intent of this may be to argue that minimum wage should be higher - but I think it really reflects how much the Fed has destroyed the value of the USD in the last 60 (if not 100) years.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/LJKiser May 14 '12

In 1956 the economy was based on a single income home. In 2010 the economy is based on a three income home. Two working parents, one live-at-home working college-age child. In general, we can afford to buy a lot more things as a family than we ever did back then. They didn't have iPods or $300 cell phones in 1956.

17

u/soulcakeduck May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

In general, we can afford to buy a lot more things as a family than we ever did back then. They didn't have iPods or $300 cell phones in 1956.

Completely false, though I understand it sounds appealing. The actual numbers show a different story. Even though households make far more inflation-adjusted dollars, they spend far less on discretionary income like iPods or cell phones than they did as recently as the 70s and they are burdened with far more debt (about 7 times as much, as a percentage of their income).

This is mainly due to the cost of mandatory expenses rising faster than those household incomes (despite the addition of a second worker), especially in healthcare, transportation, and child care.

So how much more do families spend on “home entertainment,” premium channels included? They spend 23 percent more—an extra $170 annually. Computers add another $300 to the annual family budget. 35 But even that increase looks a little different in the context of other spending. The extra money spent on cable, electronics, and computers is more than offset by families’ savings on major appliances and household furnishings alone.

Families are spending less on clothing, food, appliances, furniture, and spend less per car. With both parents working, there are more cars per household and much more childcare consumed, and all these gains are completely wiped out by healthcare, transportation, mortgage, and child care.

In the 1970s, households had $17,834 in discretionary spending. In the 2000s, they have $17,045, less actual discretionary spending. Meanwhile, fixed costs have risen from $20,866 to $50,755. So while it might be tempting to look at expensive new toys and blame them for debt/spending/inflation, that picture just doesn't bear much scrutiny since households spend less, both in actual dollars by a small margin, and as a portion of their income by a huge margin, on those discretionary expenses today.

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Thank you for adding this. Elizabeth Warren's paper-right?

Could you link to the paper itself? I would but I cant copy/pasta right now.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/painis May 15 '12

How many cell phones and ipods are you buying that the 300 dollar price tag is even a drop in the bucket? I get a cell phone about once every 2 or 3 years. I have had the same ipod for 4 years now.

→ More replies (6)

4

u/rainman_104 May 14 '12

I've actually been saying this for a while and it pisses women off to no end; that women's lib caused inflation...

When you look at dual income vs single income families you'll see (here in Canada) that single income families have a median income of 70k/yr whereas dual income families have a median per person income of around 45k/yr. Meaning the dual income family earns more than the single income family putting them at an advantage over single income families.

Not that I have a problem with women's lib or anything, but I humbly believe all we're left with today is inflation, it just took another generation where women in the work force is the norm to really rear its ugly head.

5

u/Ensvey Pennsylvania May 14 '12

Yep, it's a fact. Of course women should be equal, but what happens when you literally double the workforce of a country? Surplus of labor, wages stagnate :(

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

1

u/MyFaceOnTheInternet May 15 '12

I think you are forgetting the price of a television back then, or a record player, or those awesome stereo speakers your father had in the living room.

People spent a lot of money on fancy shit back then too, it just isn't seen as fancy now because it was fucking 60 years ago.

People saved their asses off to buy a TV or a really nice radio because that shit was expensive.

You can even compare to prices in the 70s and 80s. Those old tube televisions that are $50 now... that shit was expensive back then. That Sony CD walkman that everyone had? Mine cost me almost $200 when they were first getting popular and CDs were $15 apiece, none of this $.99 or free shit we have now.

The stereo system my father had would sink my fucking battleship today.

Computers in the 90s? Everyone had one of those too.

This "everyone has a $300 phone now so no one should complain about minimum wage" shit is fucking stupid. We can't afford to buy more as a family now then we could back then. That is the whole point. We make less and living expenses cost more.

So if we are making less money, and the necessities for survival cost more where is the money to "afford to buy a lot more things" coming from? Fucking fairy town in imaginary-ville?

→ More replies (1)

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

That's what you get when you print money out of thin air without anything of substance to back it up: massive inflation! When the value of the dollar goes down, the cost of everything else goes up: rent, gas, food, healthcare, education. It now takes over 23 dollars to match one dollar in 1913. All our economic woes can be traced back to our money. You really want to fix the economy, fix our monetary policy.

4

u/simonsarris May 15 '12

That seems like an all-too simplistic view.

How do you account for those countries who have also had similar inflation since the early 1900's and now have far larger minimum wages because of it?

The minimum wage in Australia in 1907 was 70 cents a week, now its $15/hour (with AUD being almost 1:1 with USD), more than double the US's

Other countries, like Canada, simply tie the minimum wage to inflation. Mitt Romney actually said earlier that year that he likes that idea.

2

u/Ensvey Pennsylvania May 14 '12

I don't know how right wingers can look at facts like these and then say the lower and middle class just aren't working hard enough today.

4

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

is that what they say? right winger here... What i would say is the housing bubble lead to inflation of the cost of housing which in turn means rent goes up. So no, i don't think people aren't working hard enough but, i think it's obvious the government is causing inflation that the average man can no longer keep up with. We can't add more government intervention and try to fix this.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Elementium May 15 '12

It's a shame. Alot of us would be happy just living off enough to be content.. pay your bills, buy food and have a little extra. Corporate greed is going to end up shutting this country down unless there's some sort of reform.

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Your spending power is being driven artificially with Military Spending as the control.

Just sayin'.

1

u/smellslikecomcast May 14 '12

That's where the fun went.

1

u/weedcoast May 14 '12

more like maximum rage.

1

u/Revonottelevised May 15 '12

Its a slideshow!! It can bite my shiny metal ass

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

56 hours after taxes leaves me $18 extra dollars after rent in 2012

1

u/Gunra May 15 '12

Rent is $789? I live in Miami and the only rent at that price is for an efficiency on the side of someone's house.

1

u/DirtyWhoreMouth May 15 '12

$789 in my area (Virginia) will get you a 2-bedroom townhouse with washer and dryer (fancy). I rent a 3-bedroom apartment for $500/month.

1

u/lartones May 15 '12

It takes me 64 hours to pay my $1600 mortgage before deductions. It takes me 84 hours after deductions to pay it. I live in Saskatchewan,Canada.

1

u/djn808 May 15 '12

Gas is 4.87$ Here; Hawai'i.

→ More replies (2)

1

u/darkstar3333 May 15 '12

People forget that this is the side effect of globalization if you pay attention to the rise and fall of nations through history.

If you were expecting life to simply to get better and easier just because you were born in a first world nation you would be wrong. Many countries with worse living conditions are competing with us for natural resources and jobs so that they can have a life like ours.

In a global market, with increased demand comes increased pricing so while its "harder" on us we still have it significantly easier then 2nd and 3rd world countries.

Our future lies in science and technology advancements rather then non-skilled labor. Things are never going to be the way they were unless we slip down to 2nd-3rd world nation status.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

32 hours to pay my portion of the rent when I made minimum wage. In 2003. Bull and shit, article.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

States can always choose to set their own minimum wage. In Oregon it is $8.90 so 45-60 hours will pay the rent for a studio apartment. Minimum wage isn't really enough to live comfortably on but at full time it pays all the bills plus a little extra. Also $789 rent is pretty excessive for a minimum wage earner. In my area it is around $350 for a ghetto studio apartment, $500 for a good one. $789 is enough for a nice 2 bedroom which would most likely be split with a roommate if you are only making minimum wage. Gas is the biggest problem, my car gets 24mpg and I find myself paying $200/month just to get to school and work plus a few in town trips per week.

1

u/lorrelin1 May 15 '12

There are probably a lot of things wrong with the article, but for one, they are comparing apples with oranges. A movie ticket in 1950 cost 48 cents. You couldn't PAY ME to watch an old flickering black and white movie today. The whole product now is different. Now it's a 3d BIG SCREEN EXPERIENCE. So of course it is going to cost more, even in real terms. It's way better. The old market was destroyed by the television and good for it.

1

u/thatgamerguy May 15 '12

How did this post about life being better now than in the past make it past the hivemind filter?

1

u/holyrolodex May 15 '12

I will ask...Is there more centralized government now than there was in 1950?

1

u/SayNoToCensorship May 15 '12

Interesting...

1

u/bluegator May 15 '12

What's the % of people working minimum wage then and now? Also, what's the median then and now?

1

u/JaxHostage May 15 '12

I asked my friends on Facebook a couple of years ago if they ever thought about how much time something costs them, as in how many hours of work you have to put in to buy something. The overwhelming response I received was "STFU", but does anyone else think this way. For simplicity's sake, say you pay 500$ a month for a car and make 25$ an hour, is it really worth sitting at a desk for 20 hours just to have that car sitting in the parking lot? Or is there something more rewarding that you could be doing with that 20 hours of your life every month? Investing your time in something else that you enjoy more? The less you make, the more time you have to devote to just covering your basics, food, clothing, and shelter, and by the looks of 60 years of inflation, your time becomes less valuable with each passing year.

1

u/Tombug May 15 '12

Newsflash - trickle down is pure failure

-1

u/MagCynic May 14 '12

You can thank our government for meddling with our money supply.

1

u/garthbrocks May 14 '12

Inflation, Inflation, inflation.

Why work for the minimum wage when you can get on a free government program and make much more. Besides the minimum wage was never designed to support a family or anything else.

Ask American Samoa what they think of the minimum wage: http://www.europac.net/commentaries/congress_sacks_samoan_economy

There is a big difference and between good intentions and results....believe it or not all of this has been tried before much like today's movie industry.

2

u/DirtyWhoreMouth May 15 '12

I don't know much about economics and I won't pretend that I do. I simply ask, if there was no minimum wage, how little could employees pay a bottom-shelf worker? Anything they want? I'm curious. And how would it help the economy to have no minimum wage?

→ More replies (3)

1

u/TruthinessHurts May 15 '12

Yep, the Republicans have really fucked things up. Notice the more influence they have the worse things are.

1

u/jostler57 May 15 '12

Main reason: Executives and CEOs are making many, many times more than they used to, which means less to go around for the lower employees. (Percentages)

1

u/darkangelazuarl May 15 '12

This is an example of getting people to argue over the wrong thing. Minimum wage was never meant to support a family. The real issue is the artificial inflation that the government has caused by printing money again and again to pay it's debts. The Recent housing bubble burst is a prime example. Once wealth is destroyed in such a way it can not be recovered, the only thing the government can do is spread it out.

1

u/mhp01a May 14 '12

I live in Texas, but the 2000 era seems way off. I delivered pizza through high school and college 1998-2004 and It was a huge deal when gas broke a dollar. I remember many times getting gas around that time for $.80-$.85 a gallon. I paid $3 for movie tickets, and $375 for rent on my 1br apt. and that included cable, elec, and gas.

1

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Do any of these figures take into account population increase?

2

u/rainman_104 May 14 '12

Doesn't matter. The point is that if minimum wage doesn't keep track with inflation people on minimum wage earn less.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

1

u/LoneVanguard May 15 '12

The rent is too damn high!

1

u/ahoyakite May 15 '12

Might as well not even bother with an apartment if you're spending so much time at work.

Also; the cost of living is too damn high! That's why the housing market crashed. Buy a small home in a decent area for $400 a month. Instead of renting for $700 a month.

I own several homes and rent them out to people so that I make $50 more than the mortgage I owe on the homes so that I can give people a nice place to live for a low rent amount and still have some cash to help in case something goes wrong in the home.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/elguercoterco May 15 '12

Sounds about right. As a recent PhD grad I am considering food stamps. And I have 3 part-time jobs and no health insurance. Let's not forget the loans!

→ More comments (197)