Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,318 posts, read 80,617,609 times
Reputation: 57321
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by rkcarguy
Washington State, west side. We have a severe housing problem here. This year, average household income just broke $50K/year. Average listed home price up 16.7% to $661,000. It's a worse income/home cost ratio than San Francisco.
Where is that in Western WA? You are right about the housing problem, but both figures seem really low compared to cities around here:
How many Big Macs could you buy today with 1 hour's worth of work at today's minimum wage?
- versus -
How many could you buy back in the day for the same 1 hour of work at minimum wage back then?
Kinda unfair to compare them. If the dollar amount increases to create the burger (which at minimum wage it likely would) then you will be able to buy fewer burgers. I'm not sure it would scale in an A/B comparison.
Washington State, west side. We have a severe housing problem here. This year, average household income just broke $50K/year. Average listed home price up 16.7% to $661,000. It's a worse income/home cost ratio than San Francisco.
I'd agree many housing markets in your state are getting out of hand.
When I started working, I was making $2.65/hr and a Big Mac was about $1.20 in 1978. Of course, we never ate at McDonalds as you could head to Burger Chef and get a $0.39 hamburger and load it up with toppings. Back then, nearly all meals were eaten at home unless you were fortunate to work at a restaurant and could get your meals free.
Eventually free meals went away due to a court decision that challenged their deductibility.
For the record, in the 1970s, you were lucky to get a job at McDonalds as they received about 20-30 applications per position.And then they sould cap you at 30 hours. I was lucky to work for a competitor where I could get 50 hours a week.
must have been a regional minimum wage, as... The minimum wage went to $1.00 an hour effective February 1967 for newly covered nonfarm workers, $1.15 in February 1968, $1.30 in February 1969, $1.45 in February 1970, and $1.60 in February 1971.
My first home cost me 10,000hrs of min wage (at the time) I had 3 jobs (One paid >10x min wage, whoo-hoo, but it was very risky)
Current home = 10,000hrs of current min wage (cost basis). a LOT nicer home!!!, (8x size of home, 150x property size + a free view and whole lot newer)
Back in the early 80's I was in college in California and minimum wage was $3.35. I had a studio apt in Burbank that I paid about $400 a month.
Today in Tucson, AZ you can find a small studio apt for about the same as California in the 80's and minimum is $12. In my small town in Oklahoma you can rent a 2br house for $350 and minimum is the federal minimum of $7 something an hour.
So depending on where you live you can do much better now than 37 years ago in California on minimum wage.
When I started working, I was making $2.65/hr and a Big Mac was about $1.20 in 1978. Of course, we never ate at McDonalds as you could head to Burger Chef and get a $0.39 hamburger and load it up with toppings. Back then, nearly all meals were eaten at home unless you were fortunate to work at a restaurant and could get your meals free.
Eventually free meals went away due to a court decision that challenged their deductibility.
For the record, in the 1970s, you were lucky to get a job at McDonalds as they received about 20-30 applications per position.And then they sould cap you at 30 hours. I was lucky to work for a competitor where I could get 50 hours a week.
My parents liked Burger Chef. It took connections to get a part-time job in the early 1970s. I was one of the fortunate ones. Just too many of us baby boomers. On the other hand, it took me 5 years to graduate from college. I paid half of the tuition, while my parents paid the rest of the expenses, and graduated debt free in 1979.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.