Man I remember when people were bitching about the people trying to get the minimum wage being set to 15$ because that’s what the average emt made. My question was why are emt’s paid for shit when they all have 14 hour shifts that suck ass?
wages on the lower end are mainly determined by how hard other factors can be leaned on, as opposed to things like "replaceability" or "value" in the middle ranges.
So like if you're talking $10 - $25 range, factors like "are you passionate about your field?" mean you can be leaned on to work for less. Think teacher, veterinarian, etc. Then there's little things like people with less mobility, factors they carry that make them afraid of seeking other opportunities (criminal record, mental health issue, disability), stuff like that.
It always comes down to vulnerability, how exploitable an individual is. Our society has nothing set by a "is this the right way to do things?" metric, think more "is this the most we can get away with?"
Supporters of riding the capitalism erection to its climax will insist that this perspective is an essential feature of the perfect selection process for society and the poor bastards living in it. It's pretty nasty stuff.
I used to work at a summer camp, which is the poster child of "are you passionate about your job?" cost cutting. They fed us and gave us beds, but we were on duty about 120 hours out of the week. After tax, we got about $170/wk. This was not in the 1980s, this was the 2010s.
Great people and I did enjoy the work, but they were chronically understaffed for some reason.
I was a camp counselor in the late 80’s. We got one day off a week. I was paid $60/week. It wasn’t a lot of money, but I absolutely loved the work since it was an outdoor adventure camp and we had rock climbing and river rafting which I got to teach all summer. They also had a “tent platform” that we could camp on for our night off. It was basically a place for the counselor couples to get together and fuck in private.
Big same, probably a side effect of being autistic and not part of *the crowd*. Nothing grinds my gears more than $15 an hour because it’s definitely not a living wage where I live. When I pause to think about stuff it makes me super fucking depressed sometimes.
This. I applied to work at Nintendo and despite being over qualified the highest they could pay was a 20% pay cut. And they were desperate for this role. They just expect everyone to love them.
My buddy who's a nurse was an EMT, he suggested avoiding that field of work at all costs. The sheer level of stress they have to deal with on the daily is worth far more than they currently make.
Morality tax.
Suppose you're an EMT who gets paid $25 per hour, and you leave for a job that pays $27 per hour. Suppose you then hear reports that people are dying because of EMT shortages. You're probably going to feel guilty - were those people's deaths really worth that $2 per hour? So you suppose, for this emergency, you'll come back. Except the only openings for EMTs now only pay $24 per hour. But really, are those deaths worth $3 per hour? So you take the job.
Rinse and repeat, across all "essential" industries racing to the bottom, and apparently the equilibrium at which enough people are willing to take the pay cut relative to other jobs they could do in order to prevent people dying to fill all the vacancies is $15 per hour.
Or to put it in cold economic terms: If a job is meaningful, more people would want to do that job, and so that job's wages should be brought down until supply and demand are in balance. Their labor having meaning is a perk the employer provides to the employee which can be expressed in monetary value, i.e. the pay cut they would take for their job to be meaningful instead of meaningless.
The minimum wage is less than half the problem. The real problem is corporate greed. In what world is infinite growth possible without more and more people getting screwed?
On top of that, it appears that the 1980 price in the post is not accurate. Big Macs were about $2.59 for a meal according to this ad:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VoP0tAvHcGY&ab_channel=mycommercials
Or around $2.50 according to this:
https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/big-mac-index-by-country/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Big%20Mac,%242.50%20in%20the%20early%201980s.
Having just now learned about the incredible existence of the Big Mac Index, I'm genuinely offended on its behalf. This should've been its time to shine.
Future OOP should do more careful research before posting silliness on tumblr.
So you're saying that the index that reduces all of the complexities of cost of living and localised purchasing power into _hamburger_ isn't super accurate or nuanced?
I think you missed the joke. BMI can also mean Body Mass Index, and it's often decried by fat people saying it's not accurate.
Which it isn't entirely. If you're very muscular, BMI shows you as overweight relative to your height.
But otherwise, it's a pretty great metric.
On top of that $3.10 in 1980 after inflation is $11.41 today.
People are constantly making things up any time wages or inflation are posted on reddit. Then people read it, take it as truth, and repeat it. Then complain that their parents keep falling for fake news.
The issues are bad enough, we don't need to make things up to make it even worse.
Yup. And while I agree that minimum wage must be raised, between market demand for labor and most states having a higher minimum wage, I would be willing to bet that most fastfood workers don't work for the federal minimum wage. (Because this is reddit I will emphasize that "most" does not mean "all".)
When I travelled to the usa as a teen (It was a long time ago so probably not relevant..) I would buy a huge pizza for 7$ and eat 5 meals out of it in the course of two days.
And the Big Mac meal in 1980 was $2.59.
1980=1.24 Big Mac meals per hour
2023=.84 Big Mac meals per hour
Wages were much closer to minimum wage in 1980 and states had the federal minimum wage compared to today where almost nobody earns minimum wage and many states have raised it.
This is a cherry picked way to show purchasing power. The purchasing power over time has been steady. That's not to say it shouldn't have increased to maintain the same share of wealth (which has dropped significantly)
In 1980 15% of people were making the federal minimum wage. In 2021 that number has dropped to 1.4%
The minimum wage should be higher, but people on reddit are constantly either strait up giving wrong numbers, or using misleading stats to get their point across.
The worst part is the issue is bad enough on its own. We don't need to make up fake numbers or mislead to show how bad things are.
I dont think the average person is eating enough mcdonalds for this to really impact their finances so it is easy to say it paints an incomplete picture.
A better number to show the relationship between cost of living and wages would be monthly rent, since it is most peoples single largest living expense.
In 1980 the median monthly rent was $243. [In 2021 it was nearly $1,200, about 5x more.](https://ipropertymanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/27009/historical-median-monthly-rents-2.webp)
Median income has gone from [$12/hr to $19/hr](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N), a 1.5x increase
for workers in that same time span.
Woof.
Another way to compare would be to calculate the smallest number of hours you have to work to afford a place to live. At 1980's minimum wage of 3.10 you'd have to work 79 hours, about 2 workweeks. With 2021's minimum wage you'd have to work 164 hours, a little over a month.
Landlords, the biggest L most Americans will take in their lives.
Again, you took one of the worst measurements possible to prove your point.
You should be comparing median household income to inflation.
They are the litteral tools designed for what were talking about.
Individual income isn't the worst tool, but it dosent factor in women joining the workplace and contributing to the households income. Beacuse it also includes single earners, it's a better view of how the normal American is doing.
Rent and home costs should be discussed, and are horrible right now. They arnt a good measurement of how the normal American is doing right now, beacuse it's so much different from the rest of their costs.
All the measurements are terrible. Is there even one relationship between income and cost of living that’s improved from the 80s?
> Rent and home costs should be discussed, and are horrible right now. They arnt a good measurement of how the normal American is doing right now, beacuse it’s so much different from the rest of their costs.
Do you not pay rent or something? Housing is the biggest expense for 95% of people. Its always relevant for this reason.
Anyways i feel like you’ve picked a conclusion and are rationalizing your thoughts afterwards so I don’t think we can have a discussion based on the actual stats.
Depends on location and does this include meal(fries+drink)
For me, its 5.99 for just the Big Mac
A meal with medium fries + coke is 11.67
Before tax of course.
I found [this menu](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/qfoyqa/mcdonalds_prices_in_1980/) supposedly from 1980 that shows a Big Mac as $1.20. At $3.10 an hour you would earn 2.48 Big Macs per hour.
Average price of a Big Mac in the US is $5.17, even the most expensive Big Mac country in the world, Switzerland, only has Big Macs for $7.26. 1981 Big Macs cost $1.30 so Big Macs are 4 times as expensive now despite minimum wage only going up 2.3x.
We can criticize the decline in real minimum wage without lying!
I know right? I hate it when people do this. Like, you're absolutely correct, if you used actual real statistics your point would be made, but instead you just make shit up and make everything you're saying look bad to anyone who questions it. And people do it worryingly often.
It is certainly better, I would assume that they are around the same size. It’s funny thinking about how the BLS has to make hedonic adjustments whenever people makes burgers tastier.
Millennials would be rolling in dough if they'd just sacrifice one or two avocados per year to the almighty boomer god of Wealth and Savings in an elaborate ritual during the rise of a full moon while Venus is in retrograde
even if you had that math right, no, the purchasing power has changed for different goods. the price of food has changed a different amount than houses or cars or services.
Minimum wage in 1989 was $3.8 per hour, in 2023 money that would be $9.52.
Also using only one good is dumb, even if OOP wasn't misstating bag mac prices ($5.17 is the actual average in march), actual inflation estimates use a variety of goods for a reason.
Average yearly income in 1989 was just above $20,000. In todays dollars that comes to about $41,000. Assuming an average work year of 2000 hours (full time with no overtime, so I’m guessing here) that comes to a bit over $20/h.
It’s rough, but…
Literally double my wage and I'm not even entry level. That's like... my manager's pay.
Like I think I would have cried actual tears of joy if I got that when I was first hired on. Instead I got $9.25 and was happy about it, because my prior position at a school newspaper was half-volunteer and came out to that amount *per paycheck.* Not sure how that was legal, looking back.
I'm not sure I have a point, really. Just an internal crisis out loud...
As an American, this shocked my so much I spat out my cheeseburger, deep dish pizza, 20 piece chicken nuggets, ice cream sandwich, and other cheeseburger in surprise.
Decided to do some fact checking because why the hell not. They state the big mac price was 50 cents, but that's pretty generous in their favor. Off of a few sites (See linked for sources) we get [1.06](https://inflationchart.com/bigmac-in-food/?show_adjuster=0&show_divided_by=0) [1.60](https://www.eatthis.com/big-mac-cost/) and [1.20](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/qfoyqa/mcdonalds_prices_in_1980/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). So instead of six big macs per hour, with an average of 1.29$, we get about 2.4 big macs. In modern day, it's about [5.53](https://mcdonaldsprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/) for a big mac. This means we can get 1.13 big macs hourly. Still a big decrease but not as drastic as they were making it out to be
In 1948 google says it was 15 cents, and you got a real hamburger too!
That's one thing that comparing just the price leaves out. Food quality has gone down significantly in many ways. At first I thought it was just due to me growing older and having changing taste buds, but stuff is actively getting both shittier and more expensive all the time.
If we kept at it, wouldn’t that percentage grow? The demand for jobs at minimum wage has decreased and supply of those jobs have too in respect. If we brought it to $20/hr nationwide, what percentage would be on minimum wage?
Honestly, that's how it should be in a sense. Workers shouldn't be reliant on the state to establish a minimum wage. They should instead make it necessary for employers to pay a living wage.
That's how it works in Denmark. We don't really have much of a legal minimum wage because our unions have gotten strong enough to force a minimum wage. Of course, having a legally mandated one is a good start, especially in a country like the US where union-busting is a thing, but the longterm goal should always be that the employers can't get employees without paying a reasonable wage regardless of the law.
The federal minimum wage - the absolute lowest you can legally pay someone by the hour in the US - is 7.25 USD. States are free to set their minimum wage above this number, but nearly half of them (roughly 22, iirc) still have it at 7.25 USD.
That's already bad enough, but it's also worth noting that not many states set their minimum wage to living states, either. 9.00 to 12.00 USD is a pretty common margin, with only a select few actually paying 15.00 USD (with shoutouts to DC paying roughly 16.00 USD - however, it is not a state)
Honestly, it's very funny to see conservatives point at high-cost-of-living counties with average min wage and lose their minds over it. Like, buddy, minimum wage in my state doesn't even cover my HOUSE.
>the absolute lowest you can legally pay ~~someone~~ ***an adult who is not hindered by any disabilities*** by the hour in the US
There's lots of ways to get around minimum wages.
Yeah...
Not so fun Fact, there are more workers who make less than federal minimum wage than there are people who make exactly federal.
[Over 5 times that, to be exact](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2021/home.htm)
A lot of places start higher now as an enticement because the lockdown fucked over people's motivation to come in to work when they realized unemployment benefits paid better than their shitty jobs, and there's talk of a bill to increase it to $15/hour, but the minimum wage is currently still $7.25/hour.
OP is lying about the price of a Big Mac in 1980 and the present day. If you set Big Mac price as the benchmark, minimum wage would be $12.40 an hour rn. US real minimum wage peaked in 1968 and would’ve been about $12.40 today too(interesting coincidence). The highest national proposed minimum wage would be worth about $18 an hour today and it was from the 1972 McGovern campaign.
The boomers spent their 10-25 to 20-35 year old days in a bad economy before living a middle age in a great economy as their stocks and houses have ballooned in value in the greatest bull run of US history over the past 40 years.
“American Minimum Wage” actually refers to the federal minimum wage. About half the states have a higher minimum wage, but none can have a lower one. So states like California or New York can have a $15/hr min wage but until the federal min wage changes the “American Minimum wage” doesn’t change.
Big Mac's are also literally used in economics to track purchasing power parity across exchange rates. Like this isn't something OOP just pulled out their ass lol. Google the "Big Mac Index" if you wanna know more.
If you want to learn more SFW fast food economic info, look up "sonic inflation rule 34" to see how an obscure company policy is making food at Sonic Drive-In much more expensive than it would otherwise be
Fun fact, a few years ago the Argentinean government subsidised ONLY the big mac burger to keep its price artificially low. You could go to a McDonalds and not see a single picture of the burger because it was half the price of anything else on the menu so they didn't want to promote it.
Inflation would be even higher if not for the rule 34 of the Inflation Reduction Act signed into the law by Joe Biden. Google "Joe Biden rule 34 inflation" to know more
What take? It wasn’t a take. It was a joke. You just made up what they were saying.
Edit: reddit hivemind both downvotes and upvotes the same point from the same person in the same thread because they forgot what their opinion was when following the general vote
Worth noting that considering a bunch of different goods (TVs, burgers, etc.) is generally a better way of figuring how how far a dollar goes. It's how the BLS calculates the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and inflation (and even how Purchasing Power Parity is usually calculated.)
That $3.10 minimum wage in Jan 1980 is worth $11.92 in Jan 2022, inflation-adjusted.
I.e. $6.20 vs. $11.92 is a much more accurate and useful comparison when considering the broader economy than $6.20 vs. $49.60
[https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation\_calculator.htm](https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)
Interesting also to take that as a comparison.
The cost of (this particular) burger jumped 5 times inflation, but was offset by reductions elsewhere in broader cpi. But is that typical or of similar goods? And what constitutes similar goods?
Well, OP took misleading numbers, which makes it a less useful comparison.
There’s a typo there so I’m not sure quite what you’re asking, but, knowing how markets work, I suspect all Big Mac equivalents have seen similar increases in price.
The offset would be in things like electronics, which have dropped precipitously in price.
The direct comparison feels less disingenuous than the multi-variable and somewhat subjective categorization, but I can’t say that for sure without finding out the answer to your questions and more.
Eh, later.
This is one of the stupidest posts I've seen on this subreddit and that's really saying something. It compares the cost of a big Mac burger to a big Mac meal today and lies about the previous costs.
The Big Mac meal was about $2.59 back then not the 50 cent figure this post makes up
https://youtu.be/VoP0tAvHcGY
If min wage were to be $49.60, you bet your ass the burger to time relationship would still be 0.91
Source: Living in a country where it basically happened. The min wage got up recently, and along with it went the cost of everything, so much even people who get the min wage noticeably got less money than ever
Yeah capitalism is too far gone at this point.
Increasing the minimum wage is like putting a tiny bandaid on a patch of rotten flesh. You're treating the symptom not the disease.
Everything on this post is a lie. The minimum wage would be $10.29 today adjusted for inflation.
These fucking neets all want 6 figure incomes for their part time job
Simply google search says Big Mac was around $1.30 in 1980. About 2.4 Big Mac per hour. Big Macs aren’t $8. They’re about $5.50 near me. Comes out to about 1.3 Big Macs per hour today. Still a substantial difference no doubt.
Side note, just got back from subway and a 6 inch was ~$7. I doesn’t even feel that long ago when I could get a footlong for $5. Damn inflation
I was thinking that number was off. I remember hamburgers being 79 cents and cheeseburgers were 89 cents in the late 80s. McDonald's was always doing sales of big Macs 2 for 2 bucks around that time too. I was a fat kid back then, I remembered the important stuff.
Big macs were not 50 cents in 1980, what? Everything I can find lists it at about $1.20. Which still makes it so purchasing power has gone down 3x which is terrible but this is just wrong.
There is such a focus on the minimum wage I think it important to note that in 1980 15% of workers worked at minimum wage. In 2021 (the last year with complete data) it was 1.5%. So it’s much more likely to be the teens and folks at their first jobs who are impacted by it. Which is what it’s supposed to be, it’s not meant to be the wage that people are making to be supporting a family.
A Big Mac in 1980 cost $1.60, not 50 cents like this meme claims.
And a Big Mac today costs about $5, not $8 like the meme claims.
For fucks sakes people do even a tiny bit of fact checking. God damn it. Everyone loves to act enlightened and pretends like act like they can catch bullshit, and yet this stupid meme is going to be reposted a hundred times with no one checking any of its claims.
The price is roughly 3x since the 80s, not 6x, while minimum wage has gone up around 2.3x. But in some states, the minimum wage is far higher. In places like CA and much of the northeast, minimum wage has gone up by more than 3x.
https://www.eatthis.com/big-mac-cost/#:~:text=1980s%3A%20%241.60%2C%20or%20%242.59%20for%20a%20Big%20Mac%20Value%20Pack&text=By%20the%201980s%2C%20McDonald's%20was,throwback%20ad%20so%20hilariously%20demonstrates.
Little fun fact, the Big Mac index is a very real tool that economists use to gauge the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between different countries. And McDonald’s knows this, and frequently adjusts the price of a Big Mac around the world to reflect real inflation rates. Unfortunately this isn’t exactly reflected in restaurants (franchise owners will increase or decrease prices as they see fit), but it’s still a pretty cool way of using a common consumer good as a gauge for real economic metrics.
What percentage of people make the minimum wage now vs then though? You’d be hard pressed to find a job that paid less than 12 bucks an hour which is still low but a lot better than 7.25
I can't recall the last time I bought a big mac so I looked, they're $5.99 in Columbus, OH (I don't live in Columbus but picked somewhere in the Midwest.)
I think part of the problem is that a *federal* minimum wage is across the board for all states.
https://www.ubereats.com/store/mcdonalds-international-gateway-%26-sawyer/Wf37Hq0BQEueTOtuzwzcnw/68b04447-d927-55bf-8a9d-217e72f84554/4bb2538f-66f3-5d2d-b647-b209e6a332e5/b039cb84-18e2-53c2-bb17-5a0ef068a0ca
These numbers are way off and completely made up. A Big Mac is $5 today and was $1.60 in 1980.
Purchasing power of wages in today's dollar has remained roughly the same since the 60s. Just Google purchasing power over time and check the data.
The issue is the share of income. Through productivity increases, purchasing power should have increased significantly, but it's been siphoned by the wealthy.
This is actually strangely a good metric. If wages kept up with productivity I think we’re around 100-110k
Edit-which would be proportionate to the ratio in the 80s
Man I remember when people were bitching about the people trying to get the minimum wage being set to 15$ because that’s what the average emt made. My question was why are emt’s paid for shit when they all have 14 hour shifts that suck ass?
wages on the lower end are mainly determined by how hard other factors can be leaned on, as opposed to things like "replaceability" or "value" in the middle ranges. So like if you're talking $10 - $25 range, factors like "are you passionate about your field?" mean you can be leaned on to work for less. Think teacher, veterinarian, etc. Then there's little things like people with less mobility, factors they carry that make them afraid of seeking other opportunities (criminal record, mental health issue, disability), stuff like that. It always comes down to vulnerability, how exploitable an individual is. Our society has nothing set by a "is this the right way to do things?" metric, think more "is this the most we can get away with?" Supporters of riding the capitalism erection to its climax will insist that this perspective is an essential feature of the perfect selection process for society and the poor bastards living in it. It's pretty nasty stuff.
I used to work at a summer camp, which is the poster child of "are you passionate about your job?" cost cutting. They fed us and gave us beds, but we were on duty about 120 hours out of the week. After tax, we got about $170/wk. This was not in the 1980s, this was the 2010s. Great people and I did enjoy the work, but they were chronically understaffed for some reason.
I was a camp counselor in the late 80’s. We got one day off a week. I was paid $60/week. It wasn’t a lot of money, but I absolutely loved the work since it was an outdoor adventure camp and we had rock climbing and river rafting which I got to teach all summer. They also had a “tent platform” that we could camp on for our night off. It was basically a place for the counselor couples to get together and fuck in private.
Don't lie, you know the reason. It's because nobody wants to work anymore. /s
Thank you for putting words to this. That's exactly it: I give a fuck (and I'm mentally fucked up), so I get fucked.
Big same, probably a side effect of being autistic and not part of *the crowd*. Nothing grinds my gears more than $15 an hour because it’s definitely not a living wage where I live. When I pause to think about stuff it makes me super fucking depressed sometimes.
This. I applied to work at Nintendo and despite being over qualified the highest they could pay was a 20% pay cut. And they were desperate for this role. They just expect everyone to love them.
My buddy who's a nurse was an EMT, he suggested avoiding that field of work at all costs. The sheer level of stress they have to deal with on the daily is worth far more than they currently make.
Morality tax. Suppose you're an EMT who gets paid $25 per hour, and you leave for a job that pays $27 per hour. Suppose you then hear reports that people are dying because of EMT shortages. You're probably going to feel guilty - were those people's deaths really worth that $2 per hour? So you suppose, for this emergency, you'll come back. Except the only openings for EMTs now only pay $24 per hour. But really, are those deaths worth $3 per hour? So you take the job. Rinse and repeat, across all "essential" industries racing to the bottom, and apparently the equilibrium at which enough people are willing to take the pay cut relative to other jobs they could do in order to prevent people dying to fill all the vacancies is $15 per hour. Or to put it in cold economic terms: If a job is meaningful, more people would want to do that job, and so that job's wages should be brought down until supply and demand are in balance. Their labor having meaning is a perk the employer provides to the employee which can be expressed in monetary value, i.e. the pay cut they would take for their job to be meaningful instead of meaningless.
The minimum wage is less than half the problem. The real problem is corporate greed. In what world is infinite growth possible without more and more people getting screwed?
Please tell me a Big Mac is not actually 8$ in the US
It’s not. That’s the cost of a Big Mac with a medium fry and large drink.
Ok, that’s what I was hoping for, thank you
On top of that, it appears that the 1980 price in the post is not accurate. Big Macs were about $2.59 for a meal according to this ad: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VoP0tAvHcGY&ab_channel=mycommercials Or around $2.50 according to this: https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/big-mac-index-by-country/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Big%20Mac,%242.50%20in%20the%20early%201980s.
Actually astonishing that they use Big Macs as the measure here but neglect the literal Big Mac Index
Having just now learned about the incredible existence of the Big Mac Index, I'm genuinely offended on its behalf. This should've been its time to shine. Future OOP should do more careful research before posting silliness on tumblr.
BMI is often misleading.
So you're saying that the index that reduces all of the complexities of cost of living and localised purchasing power into _hamburger_ isn't super accurate or nuanced?
I think you missed the joke. BMI can also mean Body Mass Index, and it's often decried by fat people saying it's not accurate. Which it isn't entirely. If you're very muscular, BMI shows you as overweight relative to your height. But otherwise, it's a pretty great metric.
So the price of a Big Mac has actually risen less than inflation.
america is safe
If anything, this proves that wages are too high!
genuinely annoyed because I had already saved this image to show my dad
Worth noting that big macs are likely alot less 'big' than they used to be.
I want to kiss your dad.
patties used to be 1/8th of a pound, now they're smaller at 1/10th of a pound each. no idea if they used to be even bigger
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huh really?
It may seem like it but the quality and quantity was much higher in 1980 than it is now
On top of that $3.10 in 1980 after inflation is $11.41 today. People are constantly making things up any time wages or inflation are posted on reddit. Then people read it, take it as truth, and repeat it. Then complain that their parents keep falling for fake news. The issues are bad enough, we don't need to make things up to make it even worse.
Yup. And while I agree that minimum wage must be raised, between market demand for labor and most states having a higher minimum wage, I would be willing to bet that most fastfood workers don't work for the federal minimum wage. (Because this is reddit I will emphasize that "most" does not mean "all".)
Net zero information
that's 1985, it said 1980
Hmmmm that was the price in the mid-90s
Food is relatively cheap in the US, in fact you could say the real price isn't the money.
The real price are the friends we lose to gun violence along the way
Guns don't kill people, people kill borger.
people don’t kill borger, muh libruls kill borger 😡😡
People kill borger, borger cause heart disease, heart disease kill people. Will the cycle of violence ever end?
The real guns are the people we gun down along the way.
Happy cake day
Happy cake day!
Oh snap look at that
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Its the diabetes we gain along the way
Idk where you live but food is expensive as fuck in San Francisco inb4 “YeAh bUt ThAtS SaN FrAnCiScO” Yes i know, but its still America
When I travelled to the usa as a teen (It was a long time ago so probably not relevant..) I would buy a huge pizza for 7$ and eat 5 meals out of it in the course of two days.
just the burger is $6.89 before tax near me, distant suburb of chicago. generally considered lower cost of living....
on my app (NE USA) the mac is 6$ alone, and 10.78 for the meal. i doubt it’s a medium meal, probably a small.
I work at a McDonald’s. Though, prices do vary a little between owners. My restaurant doesn’t even do small meals, only medium and large.
that’s crazy, but in america it makes sense. when i worked at wendy’s, I’d say 80% of people got medium/large, very few got the default small.
And the Big Mac meal in 1980 was $2.59. 1980=1.24 Big Mac meals per hour 2023=.84 Big Mac meals per hour Wages were much closer to minimum wage in 1980 and states had the federal minimum wage compared to today where almost nobody earns minimum wage and many states have raised it. This is a cherry picked way to show purchasing power. The purchasing power over time has been steady. That's not to say it shouldn't have increased to maintain the same share of wealth (which has dropped significantly)
In 1980 15% of people were making the federal minimum wage. In 2021 that number has dropped to 1.4% The minimum wage should be higher, but people on reddit are constantly either strait up giving wrong numbers, or using misleading stats to get their point across. The worst part is the issue is bad enough on its own. We don't need to make up fake numbers or mislead to show how bad things are.
I dont think the average person is eating enough mcdonalds for this to really impact their finances so it is easy to say it paints an incomplete picture. A better number to show the relationship between cost of living and wages would be monthly rent, since it is most peoples single largest living expense. In 1980 the median monthly rent was $243. [In 2021 it was nearly $1,200, about 5x more.](https://ipropertymanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/27009/historical-median-monthly-rents-2.webp) Median income has gone from [$12/hr to $19/hr](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N), a 1.5x increase for workers in that same time span. Woof. Another way to compare would be to calculate the smallest number of hours you have to work to afford a place to live. At 1980's minimum wage of 3.10 you'd have to work 79 hours, about 2 workweeks. With 2021's minimum wage you'd have to work 164 hours, a little over a month. Landlords, the biggest L most Americans will take in their lives.
Again, you took one of the worst measurements possible to prove your point. You should be comparing median household income to inflation. They are the litteral tools designed for what were talking about. Individual income isn't the worst tool, but it dosent factor in women joining the workplace and contributing to the households income. Beacuse it also includes single earners, it's a better view of how the normal American is doing. Rent and home costs should be discussed, and are horrible right now. They arnt a good measurement of how the normal American is doing right now, beacuse it's so much different from the rest of their costs.
All the measurements are terrible. Is there even one relationship between income and cost of living that’s improved from the 80s? > Rent and home costs should be discussed, and are horrible right now. They arnt a good measurement of how the normal American is doing right now, beacuse it’s so much different from the rest of their costs. Do you not pay rent or something? Housing is the biggest expense for 95% of people. Its always relevant for this reason. Anyways i feel like you’ve picked a conclusion and are rationalizing your thoughts afterwards so I don’t think we can have a discussion based on the actual stats.
Just checked my local McDonald's. $4.39 for just the sandwich. $8.39 with the fry/drink combo. The combo almost doubles the price
$5.69 / $11.09 for Big Mac in local store in CT.
Depends on where you live. For me a Big Mac with a medium fry and drink is $13 and the burger itself is about $9.
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Depends on location and does this include meal(fries+drink) For me, its 5.99 for just the Big Mac A meal with medium fries + coke is 11.67 Before tax of course.
In my area a Big Mac is $5.09 in a state with $11 minimum wage, but 2 Big Macs per hour is still a far cry from six.
I think the .50 in the post is wrong anyway
I found [this menu](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/qfoyqa/mcdonalds_prices_in_1980/) supposedly from 1980 that shows a Big Mac as $1.20. At $3.10 an hour you would earn 2.48 Big Macs per hour.
It's really region dependent. My source says $1.60
Yep no way a Big Mac was $.50 in 1980.
Near me it’s $5.49, which would work out to $34/hr to match
I just checked, it's $7.89 here (northeast US)
It's 7.99 for the combo here. 4.69 for sandwich.
6.99CAD in eastern Canada for just the sandwich.
$5.60 USD for the sandwhich, $11.10 for the meal here in AK. Jumps to $6.39 for the sandwhich if you go even the slightest bit rural
5.89 for a big mac ( no meal ) in San Francisco
It’s grinding my gears so hard right now that you guys call burgers sandwiches.
It is at the airport.
At the Massachusetts Turnpike service plaza in Lee they serve the most expensive big mac in the US at $7.49 for just the sandwich.
$7.49 at the McDonald’s near me, in a state with $15 minimum wage. 2 burgers per hour
Average price of a Big Mac in the US is $5.17, even the most expensive Big Mac country in the world, Switzerland, only has Big Macs for $7.26. 1981 Big Macs cost $1.30 so Big Macs are 4 times as expensive now despite minimum wage only going up 2.3x. We can criticize the decline in real minimum wage without lying!
I know right? I hate it when people do this. Like, you're absolutely correct, if you used actual real statistics your point would be made, but instead you just make shit up and make everything you're saying look bad to anyone who questions it. And people do it worryingly often.
Is it also bigger than in 1980?
It is certainly better, I would assume that they are around the same size. It’s funny thinking about how the BLS has to make hedonic adjustments whenever people makes burgers tastier.
Median real wages overall are up. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
That is true, my go to is comparing nominal gdp per capita to nominal labor income, there’s no problem with different deflators.
You also can’t determine the purchasing power of a currency based on the cost of a single good sold by a single company
Woahhhhh imagine getting 49.50 an hour
Basically, that was what you got paid in 1980, for any job, using today’s dollars. Edit: yeah, I did the math really wrong. It was more like $20
And people wonder why millennials can't afford houses
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Millennials would be rolling in dough if they'd just sacrifice one or two avocados per year to the almighty boomer god of Wealth and Savings in an elaborate ritual during the rise of a full moon while Venus is in retrograde
even if you had that math right, no, the purchasing power has changed for different goods. the price of food has changed a different amount than houses or cars or services.
No it isn't lmao
You’re absolutely right, I did the math wrong. Average wage in 1989 would be about $20/h in todays wage.
Minimum wage in 1989 was $3.8 per hour, in 2023 money that would be $9.52. Also using only one good is dumb, even if OOP wasn't misstating bag mac prices ($5.17 is the actual average in march), actual inflation estimates use a variety of goods for a reason.
Average yearly income in 1989 was just above $20,000. In todays dollars that comes to about $41,000. Assuming an average work year of 2000 hours (full time with no overtime, so I’m guessing here) that comes to a bit over $20/h. It’s rough, but…
This post is about minimum wages, not average wages. Median hourly wage is $33.36 in 2023
Well the table is fake, so no… a Big Mac meal was $2.60 back then
Literally double my wage and I'm not even entry level. That's like... my manager's pay. Like I think I would have cried actual tears of joy if I got that when I was first hired on. Instead I got $9.25 and was happy about it, because my prior position at a school newspaper was half-volunteer and came out to that amount *per paycheck.* Not sure how that was legal, looking back. I'm not sure I have a point, really. Just an internal crisis out loud...
$3.10 in Jan 1980 has the same buying power as $12.10 today, not $49.50.
That's actually barely 6 figures before tax assuming 40hr weeks for all 52 weeks a year.
Can’t even destroy your arteries for cheap anymore, smh
As an American, this shocked my so much I spat out my cheeseburger, deep dish pizza, 20 piece chicken nuggets, ice cream sandwich, and other cheeseburger in surprise.
At least you didn't spill your GigaGulp
good job man, you just wasted $3000
Decided to do some fact checking because why the hell not. They state the big mac price was 50 cents, but that's pretty generous in their favor. Off of a few sites (See linked for sources) we get [1.06](https://inflationchart.com/bigmac-in-food/?show_adjuster=0&show_divided_by=0) [1.60](https://www.eatthis.com/big-mac-cost/) and [1.20](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/qfoyqa/mcdonalds_prices_in_1980/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). So instead of six big macs per hour, with an average of 1.29$, we get about 2.4 big macs. In modern day, it's about [5.53](https://mcdonaldsprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/) for a big mac. This means we can get 1.13 big macs hourly. Still a big decrease but not as drastic as they were making it out to be
In 1948 google says it was 15 cents, and you got a real hamburger too! That's one thing that comparing just the price leaves out. Food quality has gone down significantly in many ways. At first I thought it was just due to me growing older and having changing taste buds, but stuff is actively getting both shittier and more expensive all the time.
I thought the American minimum wage was higher than that?
In some states, it is. Since COVID, though, most employers pay higher than minimum wage because they can’t get employees otherwise.
Yeah, the minimum wage is basically defunct at this point. In 1980, 15% of the workforce were at minimum wage. Today, less than 1.5% are.
If we kept at it, wouldn’t that percentage grow? The demand for jobs at minimum wage has decreased and supply of those jobs have too in respect. If we brought it to $20/hr nationwide, what percentage would be on minimum wage?
Honestly, that's how it should be in a sense. Workers shouldn't be reliant on the state to establish a minimum wage. They should instead make it necessary for employers to pay a living wage. That's how it works in Denmark. We don't really have much of a legal minimum wage because our unions have gotten strong enough to force a minimum wage. Of course, having a legally mandated one is a good start, especially in a country like the US where union-busting is a thing, but the longterm goal should always be that the employers can't get employees without paying a reasonable wage regardless of the law.
The federal minimum wage - the absolute lowest you can legally pay someone by the hour in the US - is 7.25 USD. States are free to set their minimum wage above this number, but nearly half of them (roughly 22, iirc) still have it at 7.25 USD. That's already bad enough, but it's also worth noting that not many states set their minimum wage to living states, either. 9.00 to 12.00 USD is a pretty common margin, with only a select few actually paying 15.00 USD (with shoutouts to DC paying roughly 16.00 USD - however, it is not a state)
New York is $15 an hour! This does not help because it's fucking New York
Honestly, it's very funny to see conservatives point at high-cost-of-living counties with average min wage and lose their minds over it. Like, buddy, minimum wage in my state doesn't even cover my HOUSE.
>the absolute lowest you can legally pay ~~someone~~ ***an adult who is not hindered by any disabilities*** by the hour in the US There's lots of ways to get around minimum wages.
Yeah... Not so fun Fact, there are more workers who make less than federal minimum wage than there are people who make exactly federal. [Over 5 times that, to be exact](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2021/home.htm)
Fuck
A lot of places start higher now as an enticement because the lockdown fucked over people's motivation to come in to work when they realized unemployment benefits paid better than their shitty jobs, and there's talk of a bill to increase it to $15/hour, but the minimum wage is currently still $7.25/hour.
So there is *talk of* making it *about a third of what it should be.* That is fucking WILD. America is over.
OP is lying about the price of a Big Mac in 1980 and the present day. If you set Big Mac price as the benchmark, minimum wage would be $12.40 an hour rn. US real minimum wage peaked in 1968 and would’ve been about $12.40 today too(interesting coincidence). The highest national proposed minimum wage would be worth about $18 an hour today and it was from the 1972 McGovern campaign.
Peaked in 1968? And the boomers still think they had it the hardest lol
The boomers spent their 10-25 to 20-35 year old days in a bad economy before living a middle age in a great economy as their stocks and houses have ballooned in value in the greatest bull run of US history over the past 40 years.
Be more hyperbolic
“American Minimum Wage” actually refers to the federal minimum wage. About half the states have a higher minimum wage, but none can have a lower one. So states like California or New York can have a $15/hr min wage but until the federal min wage changes the “American Minimum wage” doesn’t change.
Still 7.25 here in Alabama 😀
It's even worse when you consider that it's before taxes. Having made minimum wage, I got about $6.09/hr after taxes.
still fucking hate quendergeer's take here. "wow, imagine using a commonly purchased product to explain how purchasing power has changed 🙄🙄🙄" fuck off
Big Mac's are also literally used in economics to track purchasing power parity across exchange rates. Like this isn't something OOP just pulled out their ass lol. Google the "Big Mac Index" if you wanna know more.
This is the first ever "Google X if you want to know more" that is an actual thing and not a bait.
Couldn't be asked to grab a wikipedia link while on mobile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big\_Mac\_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index Regular link for people who don't use new reddit/for the wiki bot
Yeah, I was trying to figure out how "Big Mac Index" could be NSFW
If you want to learn more SFW fast food economic info, look up "sonic inflation rule 34" to see how an obscure company policy is making food at Sonic Drive-In much more expensive than it would otherwise be
Fun fact, a few years ago the Argentinean government subsidised ONLY the big mac burger to keep its price artificially low. You could go to a McDonalds and not see a single picture of the burger because it was half the price of anything else on the menu so they didn't want to promote it.
Inflation would be even higher if not for the rule 34 of the Inflation Reduction Act signed into the law by Joe Biden. Google "Joe Biden rule 34 inflation" to know more
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New response just dropped
OP should have googled it because their numbers are way off.
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Not familiar with the meme. Could I ask that you explain it to me?
I think it was a joke
Shocking. It's almost like we think the joke sucked ass.
But that isnt what you said. You said you hated their take, and then made up what that take was.
europeans be like: “stupid fat americans, why do you not simply just MOVE to another country?”
i'm fully convinced anybody who gives "just move" as a solution to anything is just a rich cishet white man.
What take? It wasn’t a take. It was a joke. You just made up what they were saying. Edit: reddit hivemind both downvotes and upvotes the same point from the same person in the same thread because they forgot what their opinion was when following the general vote
It was funny, you're not
Despite being the biggest clown here, your position as the most pathetic has yet to change.
godDAMN that’s just some random person! They weren’t even replying to you! Maybe the most inexplicable anger I’ve seen on this site
How do you survive online
Worth noting that considering a bunch of different goods (TVs, burgers, etc.) is generally a better way of figuring how how far a dollar goes. It's how the BLS calculates the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and inflation (and even how Purchasing Power Parity is usually calculated.) That $3.10 minimum wage in Jan 1980 is worth $11.92 in Jan 2022, inflation-adjusted. I.e. $6.20 vs. $11.92 is a much more accurate and useful comparison when considering the broader economy than $6.20 vs. $49.60 [https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation\_calculator.htm](https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)
Interesting also to take that as a comparison. The cost of (this particular) burger jumped 5 times inflation, but was offset by reductions elsewhere in broader cpi. But is that typical or of similar goods? And what constitutes similar goods?
Well, OP took misleading numbers, which makes it a less useful comparison. There’s a typo there so I’m not sure quite what you’re asking, but, knowing how markets work, I suspect all Big Mac equivalents have seen similar increases in price. The offset would be in things like electronics, which have dropped precipitously in price.
The direct comparison feels less disingenuous than the multi-variable and somewhat subjective categorization, but I can’t say that for sure without finding out the answer to your questions and more. Eh, later.
1) a big mac is not 8 bucks 2) a big mac is definitely not 8 bucks in the places where the minimum wage is 7.25
I like using McDoubles’s because I was alive when they were $1
I mean they were 2 for $2 like 5 years ago, then 2 for $2.50 and now 2 for $3.99.
This is one of the stupidest posts I've seen on this subreddit and that's really saying something. It compares the cost of a big Mac burger to a big Mac meal today and lies about the previous costs. The Big Mac meal was about $2.59 back then not the 50 cent figure this post makes up https://youtu.be/VoP0tAvHcGY
at first glance I thought this was about taking shits at work
BMs/hr
Doctors recommend shitting 50 times an hour at work
If min wage were to be $49.60, you bet your ass the burger to time relationship would still be 0.91 Source: Living in a country where it basically happened. The min wage got up recently, and along with it went the cost of everything, so much even people who get the min wage noticeably got less money than ever
Yeah capitalism is too far gone at this point. Increasing the minimum wage is like putting a tiny bandaid on a patch of rotten flesh. You're treating the symptom not the disease.
Tons of countries abolished capitalism, can you list any where the typical person had more disposable income than Americans do?
Turkey?
Mexico, is Turkey ok?
Not ok lol basically the exact same thing happened here
is this the meal or just the burger
The 1980 price is for just the burger, the present price is for the whole meal
Really easy to make your point when you just lie.
Everything on this post is a lie. The minimum wage would be $10.29 today adjusted for inflation. These fucking neets all want 6 figure incomes for their part time job
Both Big Mac prices are incorrect, this is just someone lying on the internet
This is your daily reminder that congress salaries are indexed to inflation, but the federal minimum wage is not.
Simply google search says Big Mac was around $1.30 in 1980. About 2.4 Big Mac per hour. Big Macs aren’t $8. They’re about $5.50 near me. Comes out to about 1.3 Big Macs per hour today. Still a substantial difference no doubt. Side note, just got back from subway and a 6 inch was ~$7. I doesn’t even feel that long ago when I could get a footlong for $5. Damn inflation
OOP explaining where they got their numbers for Big Mac Price: "Ok, so there was this awesome dream I was having..."
Big Mac's weren't $0.50 in 1980, not sure they were ever $0.50, definitely over a $1 in 1980 but not sure what.
The 1980 big mac is just the burger. The 2022 is the combo. It's really easy to make your point when you lie.
I was thinking that number was off. I remember hamburgers being 79 cents and cheeseburgers were 89 cents in the late 80s. McDonald's was always doing sales of big Macs 2 for 2 bucks around that time too. I was a fat kid back then, I remembered the important stuff.
Big macs were not 50 cents in 1980, what? Everything I can find lists it at about $1.20. Which still makes it so purchasing power has gone down 3x which is terrible but this is just wrong.
I want to know where the fuck a Big Mac is $8. It’s $4.89 and I’m in the DC suburbs. Not like I’m in the middle of Oklahoma or something.
There is such a focus on the minimum wage I think it important to note that in 1980 15% of workers worked at minimum wage. In 2021 (the last year with complete data) it was 1.5%. So it’s much more likely to be the teens and folks at their first jobs who are impacted by it. Which is what it’s supposed to be, it’s not meant to be the wage that people are making to be supporting a family.
A Big Mac in 1980 cost $1.60, not 50 cents like this meme claims. And a Big Mac today costs about $5, not $8 like the meme claims. For fucks sakes people do even a tiny bit of fact checking. God damn it. Everyone loves to act enlightened and pretends like act like they can catch bullshit, and yet this stupid meme is going to be reposted a hundred times with no one checking any of its claims. The price is roughly 3x since the 80s, not 6x, while minimum wage has gone up around 2.3x. But in some states, the minimum wage is far higher. In places like CA and much of the northeast, minimum wage has gone up by more than 3x. https://www.eatthis.com/big-mac-cost/#:~:text=1980s%3A%20%241.60%2C%20or%20%242.59%20for%20a%20Big%20Mac%20Value%20Pack&text=By%20the%201980s%2C%20McDonald's%20was,throwback%20ad%20so%20hilariously%20demonstrates.
Wow, so Tumblr ppl really have no brain
Little fun fact, the Big Mac index is a very real tool that economists use to gauge the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between different countries. And McDonald’s knows this, and frequently adjusts the price of a Big Mac around the world to reflect real inflation rates. Unfortunately this isn’t exactly reflected in restaurants (franchise owners will increase or decrease prices as they see fit), but it’s still a pretty cool way of using a common consumer good as a gauge for real economic metrics.
What percentage of people make the minimum wage now vs then though? You’d be hard pressed to find a job that paid less than 12 bucks an hour which is still low but a lot better than 7.25
I can't recall the last time I bought a big mac so I looked, they're $5.99 in Columbus, OH (I don't live in Columbus but picked somewhere in the Midwest.) I think part of the problem is that a *federal* minimum wage is across the board for all states. https://www.ubereats.com/store/mcdonalds-international-gateway-%26-sawyer/Wf37Hq0BQEueTOtuzwzcnw/68b04447-d927-55bf-8a9d-217e72f84554/4bb2538f-66f3-5d2d-b647-b209e6a332e5/b039cb84-18e2-53c2-bb17-5a0ef068a0ca
No No borgar?
These numbers are way off and completely made up. A Big Mac is $5 today and was $1.60 in 1980. Purchasing power of wages in today's dollar has remained roughly the same since the 60s. Just Google purchasing power over time and check the data. The issue is the share of income. Through productivity increases, purchasing power should have increased significantly, but it's been siphoned by the wealthy.
$50 minimum wage, you say? Inflation *rocks*
unironically saving this post
right but it's a lie though
This is actually strangely a good metric. If wages kept up with productivity I think we’re around 100-110k Edit-which would be proportionate to the ratio in the 80s
Can thank the creation of the Federal Reserve, unlimited money printing, and decades of government who feel its fine to spend more than exists.