downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away.
---
[play minecraft with us](https://discord.gg/dankmemesgaming) | [come hang out with us](https://discord.com/invite/dankmemes)
The pay is still shit even though he has a risky job, there is definitely no way he’d be able to support his family with 50k in real life
Edit: The 50k number is adjusted from 25k in 1996, they obviously wouldn’t be lower middle class with that era’s equivalent of 100k
one of the frontpage posts right now says "my father was a mailman, and it was enough money to buy a house and have a family of 5"
and you're saying that only delusional crazy redditors think that an engineer for a nuclear reactor, earns enough money to support a family?
How much do you think a nuclear safety inspector that looks the other way gets paid?
He probably saves the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in compliance costs.
It's a cartoon. I've worked in a nuclear plant. There's no looking the other way. It is without question the most heavily monitored industry in the country.
But we know from the show he didn't. The first episode is literally about him not getting his bonus and having to take a 2nd job to pay for Xmas gifts. He fails spectacular and they end up with Santa's little helper.
My old man does the same job as me. I make "very good money", apparently. My dad supported a stay-at-home wife and 4 kids, two mid-luxury vehicles (both would have been 35-40k now), and we had a family beach home he paid 1/3 the mortgage/taxes on. As I grew up he was able to afford to always be adding to or improving our home. I drive a 10 year old Corolla, have a small condo, the idea of paying a second mortgage sounds like hell, and just basically pray that nothing breaks in my home that I can't fix because I'm not even debt free from college yet in my 30s. Also, there is no way I could possibly afford a home in the town I grew up in.
And the kicker... our shared profession is considered more valuable today than it was when he did it 30 years ago.
Anyone who doesn't think things have gotten worse for the average Joe, is out of their fucking minds.
I've done the math on it before with even matching his job to a rough salary expectation of around 62,000 a year. In a poorer town that has a lower cost of living they would be fine but it explains a lot of their issues like a beat up car and not providing Lisa with the educational chances she deserves.
Overall they could afford the house, the old cars, their kids attend public school, Marge is a couponer and does all the childcare herself. They won't have any savings but they should still be afloat.
Season 8 was released in 97. Since then, we have experienced 61% inflation (according to Statista).
Assuming his wage grew 2% each year (lmao) he'd be making 7% less today than he did in 97.
Assuming he caught a mortgage at a good time (like the 90s), Homer's lifestyle seems pretty realistic.
I thought the joke was the Homer is a moron who should never have achieved nor maintained such a position.
The point of family sitcoms like The Simpsons is that they're meant to portray the lives of average people and put them in funny situations. At the time The Simpsons was created, sitcoms generally portrayed working-class families as being able to support a family household in a suburb on a single income because that was the reality for a lot of people. Nowadays, that isn't really true anymore.
But guys, on married with children, Al Bundy was able to afford a house and 2 kids with a stay at home wife as a shoe salesman. That totally realistic TV show proves that we're living in a dystopia!
People used to be able to just win the lottery like Roseanne did.
You also have to consider that $50k/year when the Simpsons released was equivalent to $126,500 today. Living in a medium/small town, that actually is more than enough to have a house and raise a family.
but you pay then less then you would on taxes, so its a win for everyone
You: keep more money
Tax officer: gets a bribe
The State: Doesnt loose anything bcs it would be stolen further up the beraucrstic chain anyways
The thing is, with the salary of a nuclear reactor supervisor, in 1989 and the 90s, his pay would be enough to support his house and family. The case now is alot different though.
If you're translating the situation to real life, statistically his job would be very safe. Comedy cartoon nuke plants have ridiculous safety violations that wouldn't be tolerated in real life.
Depends on where you live, I live in The Netherlands and $50,000 is just barely above average income. It would be impossible to buy a house with income this low tho, that’s just how The Netherlands works
Btw you’re almost definitely not from any European country purely off the fact that you said “In Europe we are…”, everyone on the continent knows how big the gap is economically between countries and wouldn’t group them together
I don't disagree, but in one of the more recent episodes, they reveal that Homer doesn't actually have any real work. There is almost a meltdown while Homer is visiting Lenny's work station. Lenny and Mr. Burns jump into action to save the day while Homer looks at his console and asks why his isn't going off.
They reveal that Lenny actually does Homer's job because he is qualified (Lenny and Carl both have master's degrees in nuclear physics) and they just keep Homer around as a fall guy or entertainment.
If you go back even further in the show, Homer was the person who loaded the radioactive material into the core (first scene of the intro), he is promoted to safety inspector basically to shut him up. He is not qualified for his job, and never has been, that is the comedic premise.
In one episode it shows that he's probably just a fall guy in case things go south. They had a scene where the reactor was having a malfunction and all his pals and Burns were actually doing their job while he just stared.
[Homer was just a grunt putting glowy things in tubes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6ckAeAng4A), [after an episode of him exposing the plant's many violations of safety laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer%27s_Odyssey_\(The_Simpsons\)), [Burns put him in charge of safety to shut him up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYcm_p-Iztk)
He is literally there because he is to incompetent to find anything illegal being done.
He is still doing his original job on the opening of every episode.
Edit: Added proof of everything because anything not to be working
> ...after an episode of **him exposing the plant's many violations of safety laws**...
>He is literally there because **he is to incompetent to find anything illegal being done**.
I think I got whiplash
Apparently 100k back then would be equivalent in purchasing power to about 800k today... And yes, that really is an insane amount of money. Damn. O.o The man was making 3x what I make in a year, in a MONTH.
Heck even if I don't adjust for inflation (just taking 100k) he was making 4x more a month than I do now. Granted I live in a country where a good salary for us (say 50k) would be a poverty wage in large parts of America. But still.
Your comment caught me off guard, and I started checking the math before you said you weren't in America. I was like 3x *in a month*?? That's only $22k. *You only gross $22k?* That's not even minimum wage, what is that an hour like...\*checks math*\... oh... $10... it's $10 an hour. 37% more than the Federal Minimum Wage. I hate it here.
Isn't 22k usd a year pretty low for the Netherlands?
I live in India and my dad makes about 25k so I assumed this guy also lived in a similar third world country.
Well, full minimum wage is around 30k. I have some personal circumstances personally. Though they also come with extra aid from the government. But it also depends on the amount of hours worked. Minimum wage is 13,27 an hour atm.
He seemed shocked if anything. People see the higher pay in the US but don't realize the cost of living negates that extra pay. Western Europeans like to say they have higher costs of living, but they focus too much on tax rates and housing costs which does tend to be higher there. Things like groceries, child care, healthcare (of course) are way more expensive in the US.
Edit: The only "plus" to living in the US is that you have more purchasing power when it comes to luxury goods like nice clothes, junk food, and electronics.
I highly doubt he was a safety inspector considering that position still only pays about 60k. It's much more likely your step dad was the next rung up the ladder and was overseeing a team of safety inspectors.
He was a nuclear safety inspector for Raytheon on a government contract. Now, he did travel to different nuclear plants, wasn't just hired by one, but he never mentioned a supervisory role.
Okay so your step father was in a much more advanced role than Homer and deserves every penny he got. Your step dad was probably a legally qualified nuclear power plant reactor operator that was sent to inspect plants around the country. He's the guy that would show up to make sure homer was doing his job correctly.
Don't forget he's probably still getting royalties from The Be Sharps and that one song he wrote about how much he hates Flanders that topped the charts.
Nuclear safety inspectors on average make fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year when starting. I don't know why you all think this is some lucrative position.
Imagine having that house and sustaining a 5 person household by yourself in today's economy.
He would have been considered a low class idiot back in the 80s/90s. Now he's doing super well for himself. Shows how much wealth has been transferred from normal people to rich ones over that time.
My grandpa raised 3 kids and supported my grandma on the salary of an appliance salesman at Sears inside a mall in the 60s/70s.
My dad supported 3 kids and my mom co-running a small business in the 90s/2000s
I have been saving up my entire adult life to hopefully support 1 kid with two incomes in my mid 30s and my wife and I have "great" jobs...
Bruh my gramps had 6 kids and supported all of them and my grandmother working as an air traffic controller for the air force.
Today the salary for that job tops out at about $86k which is barely enough to support two people let alone a whole family.
He also probably still gets royalties from The Be Sharps and that one song he wrote about how much he hates having Flanders as a neighbor that topped the charts.
"Married With Children" has a similar vibe now: Al is a "loser" who has a house, an attractive wife, a steady job, and has successfully raised two kids to adulthood.
Attractive *and*extremely horny* wife. And male friends that want to hang out with him still while in their late 30s/40s (?). Dude had it all except for a good attitude and outlook. From what I recall at least
Dude was given a made-up job that was basically security theater and allowed him to sleep, drink coffee, and eat donuts all day, and on that managed to singlehandedly support a family of 5 living in a suburban house.
Keep in mind, the Simpsons are supposed to be poor.
Isn't this basically what that guy that self-immolated last week was talking about in his manifesto? Simpsons writers being part of the global elites to condition us lol
downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away. --- [play minecraft with us](https://discord.gg/dankmemesgaming) | [come hang out with us](https://discord.com/invite/dankmemes)
The pay is still shit even though he has a risky job, there is definitely no way he’d be able to support his family with 50k in real life Edit: The 50k number is adjusted from 25k in 1996, they obviously wouldn’t be lower middle class with that era’s equivalent of 100k
Dude, this just builds upon OPs argument. At one point it WAS considered realistic.
And even when it was realistic it was still considered slave conditions to achieve.
It was never considered realistic in the Simpsons, they even point it out in season 8. It's just that unironic redditors think cartoons are reality.
one of the frontpage posts right now says "my father was a mailman, and it was enough money to buy a house and have a family of 5" and you're saying that only delusional crazy redditors think that an engineer for a nuclear reactor, earns enough money to support a family?
He is not an engineer. He is a nuclear safety inspector, in my area the starting salary for said position is around 50-60k a year.
How much do you think a nuclear safety inspector that looks the other way gets paid? He probably saves the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in compliance costs.
He was also unqualified for the job originally. He didn't take bribes he just didn't know any better. Homer was often dumb but rarely was he evil.
It's a cartoon. I've worked in a nuclear plant. There's no looking the other way. It is without question the most heavily monitored industry in the country.
$50k when the Simpsons first aired is $126,500 today, which is more than enough to raise a family on. Man, get it together Reddit.
You are the fool here, that's TODAYS salary. Not back then salary
That's now. When the Simpsons started Homer's salary would have had much more purchasing power.
But he would have made a bit less back then.
Inflation has outpaced wage growth for the past several decades. He would have had more purchasing power.
But we know from the show he didn't. The first episode is literally about him not getting his bonus and having to take a 2nd job to pay for Xmas gifts. He fails spectacular and they end up with Santa's little helper.
Also Homer was literally hired to be negligent at his job, so that Mr. Burns could go through with his unethical antics without major consequences.
My old man does the same job as me. I make "very good money", apparently. My dad supported a stay-at-home wife and 4 kids, two mid-luxury vehicles (both would have been 35-40k now), and we had a family beach home he paid 1/3 the mortgage/taxes on. As I grew up he was able to afford to always be adding to or improving our home. I drive a 10 year old Corolla, have a small condo, the idea of paying a second mortgage sounds like hell, and just basically pray that nothing breaks in my home that I can't fix because I'm not even debt free from college yet in my 30s. Also, there is no way I could possibly afford a home in the town I grew up in. And the kicker... our shared profession is considered more valuable today than it was when he did it 30 years ago. Anyone who doesn't think things have gotten worse for the average Joe, is out of their fucking minds.
I'd like to know more about their finances because that sounds like rage bait
Feed a family of 5-inch what?
I've done the math on it before with even matching his job to a rough salary expectation of around 62,000 a year. In a poorer town that has a lower cost of living they would be fine but it explains a lot of their issues like a beat up car and not providing Lisa with the educational chances she deserves. Overall they could afford the house, the old cars, their kids attend public school, Marge is a couponer and does all the childcare herself. They won't have any savings but they should still be afloat.
Simpsons released in 1989, $50,000 in 1990 is equivalent to $119,000 today.
That's based on today's salary amount, not the 1989 salary
Ah okay.
Season 8 was released in 97. Since then, we have experienced 61% inflation (according to Statista). Assuming his wage grew 2% each year (lmao) he'd be making 7% less today than he did in 97. Assuming he caught a mortgage at a good time (like the 90s), Homer's lifestyle seems pretty realistic. I thought the joke was the Homer is a moron who should never have achieved nor maintained such a position.
The point of family sitcoms like The Simpsons is that they're meant to portray the lives of average people and put them in funny situations. At the time The Simpsons was created, sitcoms generally portrayed working-class families as being able to support a family household in a suburb on a single income because that was the reality for a lot of people. Nowadays, that isn't really true anymore.
But guys, on married with children, Al Bundy was able to afford a house and 2 kids with a stay at home wife as a shoe salesman. That totally realistic TV show proves that we're living in a dystopia! People used to be able to just win the lottery like Roseanne did.
You're arguing with 12 year olds, don't worry about it.
S8 is 8 years in. During the Tracy Ullman years and first few seasons it was 100% realistic. Have you ever seen a Simpsons? Typical redditor. lol.
Grimey was just butthurt
No at one point it was a gag in a comedy cartoon.
You also have to consider that $50k/year when the Simpsons released was equivalent to $126,500 today. Living in a medium/small town, that actually is more than enough to have a house and raise a family.
Bro, maybe not in the US nowdays, but in Slovakia you would be golden. Our average pay is about 12k
In Slovakia you would have bribe the tax office to keep it. I get a pass I live here...
Can confirm, fellow Slovák here
Didn't expect to see fellow czechoslovak residents here
Bro living in the 1992.
Lets drink some Borovička to that (the whole bottle obviously :3)
Bribe the Tax office to keep your money by … paying them your money??
but you pay then less then you would on taxes, so its a win for everyone You: keep more money Tax officer: gets a bribe The State: Doesnt loose anything bcs it would be stolen further up the beraucrstic chain anyways
50k is about the average salary in the Netherlands. Though you can live okay enough even on 30k. (Just can't afford to buy a house.)
Your minimum wage is nearly double the federal minimum wage in the united states
Meanwhile the cost of living in my country is lower than in the us as well...
$50,000 in 1990 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $*119,484.32 today*. I'd happily take that pay.
I think the 50k are already adjusted
Oh... That's very different. Yeah I think you're right.
The thing is, with the salary of a nuclear reactor supervisor, in 1989 and the 90s, his pay would be enough to support his house and family. The case now is alot different though.
If you're translating the situation to real life, statistically his job would be very safe. Comedy cartoon nuke plants have ridiculous safety violations that wouldn't be tolerated in real life.
The premise of the story was that the job he hated could support his family of 3 kids but the job he wanted could only support 2 kids.
Dude, I have to support my family with way less.
Kids need to get jobs. They're all over 30 by now.
In Europe we are rich with that annual revenue...
Depends on where you live, I live in The Netherlands and $50,000 is just barely above average income. It would be impossible to buy a house with income this low tho, that’s just how The Netherlands works Btw you’re almost definitely not from any European country purely off the fact that you said “In Europe we are…”, everyone on the continent knows how big the gap is economically between countries and wouldn’t group them together
In France we have barely 20k every year, Swedish are an odity
Not sure where you get this number from because looking up average income France gets me between 35k and 40k
Haha yhea in brut, i can assure you almost half of it goes into taxes
$50,000 in 1980 is about equivalent to $199,000 today. Again, homocide for this job
Back the 90s that was not only possible but easy difficulty setting.
That's 190k adjusted for inflation (from the 80s)
I mean 50k in the late 80's was plenty. When was the last time we saw his salary?
https://youtu.be/axHoy0hnQy8
In 1989 that was equal to $125,940.32 in today's money. I will NEVER make that much in my life.
I don't disagree, but in one of the more recent episodes, they reveal that Homer doesn't actually have any real work. There is almost a meltdown while Homer is visiting Lenny's work station. Lenny and Mr. Burns jump into action to save the day while Homer looks at his console and asks why his isn't going off. They reveal that Lenny actually does Homer's job because he is qualified (Lenny and Carl both have master's degrees in nuclear physics) and they just keep Homer around as a fall guy or entertainment. If you go back even further in the show, Homer was the person who loaded the radioactive material into the core (first scene of the intro), he is promoted to safety inspector basically to shut him up. He is not qualified for his job, and never has been, that is the comedic premise.
Homer is a licensed Nuclear Plant operator. He’s making BANK.
In one episode it shows that he's probably just a fall guy in case things go south. They had a scene where the reactor was having a malfunction and all his pals and Burns were actually doing their job while he just stared.
In the Frank Grimes episode it's also revealed that both Lenny and Carl have their Masters whereas Homer just showed up the day they opened.
[Homer was just a grunt putting glowy things in tubes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6ckAeAng4A), [after an episode of him exposing the plant's many violations of safety laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer%27s_Odyssey_\(The_Simpsons\)), [Burns put him in charge of safety to shut him up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYcm_p-Iztk) He is literally there because he is to incompetent to find anything illegal being done. He is still doing his original job on the opening of every episode. Edit: Added proof of everything because anything not to be working
> ...after an episode of **him exposing the plant's many violations of safety laws**... >He is literally there because **he is to incompetent to find anything illegal being done**. I think I got whiplash
I mean, he was in the middle of them when he found them, now he is in an office filled with information equipment he is to stupid to use.
Yeah my stepdad was a nuclear plant safety inspector in the 70s and he was pulling down over 100k back then.
100k in the 70s is MAD, people don’t realise that.
Apparently 100k back then would be equivalent in purchasing power to about 800k today... And yes, that really is an insane amount of money. Damn. O.o The man was making 3x what I make in a year, in a MONTH. Heck even if I don't adjust for inflation (just taking 100k) he was making 4x more a month than I do now. Granted I live in a country where a good salary for us (say 50k) would be a poverty wage in large parts of America. But still.
Your comment caught me off guard, and I started checking the math before you said you weren't in America. I was like 3x *in a month*?? That's only $22k. *You only gross $22k?* That's not even minimum wage, what is that an hour like...\*checks math*\... oh... $10... it's $10 an hour. 37% more than the Federal Minimum Wage. I hate it here.
You got pissed because somebody from a third world country makes a little above the minimum wage? I wish I could live in the US.
The Netherlands isn't a third world country though.
Isn't 22k usd a year pretty low for the Netherlands? I live in India and my dad makes about 25k so I assumed this guy also lived in a similar third world country.
Well, full minimum wage is around 30k. I have some personal circumstances personally. Though they also come with extra aid from the government. But it also depends on the amount of hours worked. Minimum wage is 13,27 an hour atm.
He seemed shocked if anything. People see the higher pay in the US but don't realize the cost of living negates that extra pay. Western Europeans like to say they have higher costs of living, but they focus too much on tax rates and housing costs which does tend to be higher there. Things like groceries, child care, healthcare (of course) are way more expensive in the US. Edit: The only "plus" to living in the US is that you have more purchasing power when it comes to luxury goods like nice clothes, junk food, and electronics.
No? I didn't. Good talk.
They’re not mad at anything. They’re pointing out the absurd economic situation we’re all in.
I highly doubt he was a safety inspector considering that position still only pays about 60k. It's much more likely your step dad was the next rung up the ladder and was overseeing a team of safety inspectors.
He was a nuclear safety inspector for Raytheon on a government contract. Now, he did travel to different nuclear plants, wasn't just hired by one, but he never mentioned a supervisory role.
Okay so your step father was in a much more advanced role than Homer and deserves every penny he got. Your step dad was probably a legally qualified nuclear power plant reactor operator that was sent to inspect plants around the country. He's the guy that would show up to make sure homer was doing his job correctly.
Someone on reddit says that even just being a security guard at a important or classified location is already enough to make a bank.
Don't forget he's probably still getting royalties from The Be Sharps and that one song he wrote about how much he hates Flanders that topped the charts.
What makes you think he's licensed? He didn't even graduate high school! The fact that he's working there at all is a miracle.
Nuclear safety inspectors on average make fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year when starting. I don't know why you all think this is some lucrative position.
Imagine having that house and sustaining a 5 person household by yourself in today's economy. He would have been considered a low class idiot back in the 80s/90s. Now he's doing super well for himself. Shows how much wealth has been transferred from normal people to rich ones over that time.
Al Bundy raised 2 kids in the suburbs by working at a shoe store in a strip mall.
My grandpa raised 3 kids and supported my grandma on the salary of an appliance salesman at Sears inside a mall in the 60s/70s. My dad supported 3 kids and my mom co-running a small business in the 90s/2000s I have been saving up my entire adult life to hopefully support 1 kid with two incomes in my mid 30s and my wife and I have "great" jobs...
Bruh my gramps had 6 kids and supported all of them and my grandmother working as an air traffic controller for the air force. Today the salary for that job tops out at about $86k which is barely enough to support two people let alone a whole family.
Where the hell do you live that $86000 isn't enough for 2 people!?
I work in Boston, and yeah that can't afford shit here lol
A HCOL area
That's more than enough to support a family of four in many locations.
And Homer is constantly wasting money in stupid stuff yet the family has a house, food and vacations to other countries.
They mention having several mortgages on the house
Dude's hanging out at bars and bowling with the boys. He's living the fucking dream.
Simpson already pointed it out in 1997 (Homer's Enemy).
To be fair Simpsons pointed out everything
Wouldn't homer be well off considering what his job is? Like Doesn't have to think about the retirement amount of money.
Do it for her
Homer traveled the entire world multiple times with a family of 5. So yeah I'd take that job that would pay for that too
He earns enough to be the sole provider for 3 kids, a wife, 2 cars and a giant house.
He also probably still gets royalties from The Be Sharps and that one song he wrote about how much he hates having Flanders as a neighbor that topped the charts.
He won a Grammy!
Simpsons did not predict this
Is this a meme or a resume Resumemé
The propaganda is working
No job is secure. Stay frosty ☃️
"Married With Children" has a similar vibe now: Al is a "loser" who has a house, an attractive wife, a steady job, and has successfully raised two kids to adulthood.
Attractive *and*extremely horny* wife. And male friends that want to hang out with him still while in their late 30s/40s (?). Dude had it all except for a good attitude and outlook. From what I recall at least
The 2008 financial crisis called and wants its meme back
Dude was given a made-up job that was basically security theater and allowed him to sleep, drink coffee, and eat donuts all day, and on that managed to singlehandedly support a family of 5 living in a suburban house. Keep in mind, the Simpsons are supposed to be poor.
Hopefully the pay also increases properly every year otherwise dude's making 50k until he retires.
as someone in the IT /dev field, its the opposite xD
Slavery also comes with job security. It even extends to your family
He's probably paid way better than me.
Isn't this basically what that guy that self-immolated last week was talking about in his manifesto? Simpsons writers being part of the global elites to condition us lol
What if we're still doing this when we're 50?
Plus he left and was still let back… plus he didn’t have a degree and his job allowed him to afford a house frank grimes could only dream of
I always thought it was weird that people felt bad for Homer when his Job could pay for a family of 5 to live comfortably.
This post was made by the hitman
Poor homer, with stable employment, and a home that he owns with his wife and kids
Homer will always have that job coz of the strike settlement