Welcome Back To Serfdom: This Time They Did It In Record Time

1950:

Minimum Wage: $0.75/hour

30 Year Mortgage Rate: 4.0%

Median Price Home: $7354

2024:

Minimum Wage: $7.25/hour

30 Year Mortgage Rate: 6.6%

Median Price Home: $420,400

So, in 1950, if somebody being paid the minimum monthly wage (22 workdays X 8 hours/day = 176 hours/month = $132/month) wanted to buy a median price home their mortgage - with 10% down - would be $31.60/month, which is 24% of monthly pay, well within the historical rule of thumb of 30%.

So, what does that mean?

It means that, in the 50s, with hamburger at 3 pounds for a dollar, my mother bought, and we ate, a lot of hamburger (it's called ground beef these days, and is offered in several not very appetizing formats replete with discrete fat, as opposed to natural fat from the meat trimmings that were ground to make hamburger, compared to ground beef) then, so $132 a month still had some spending clout back then.

Just to grind that axe a little more, sirloin steak was $0.50/pound and KC Strip (New York Cut) was $0.90/pound.

Times change.

So, in 2024 dealing with the same variables, the mortgage payment for a median price home with ten percent down would be 189% of monthly pay (minimum wage).

The fact that the down payment would look like the average - relatively prosperous - young American's retirement savings tells the sad tale of "let's get serious".

And so, one might ask "how much would the 2024 pay have to be to have the mortgage be 24% of it; to be the same as a minimum wage earner in 1950?"

With a magical proportion equation (132 is to 32 as X is to 2416) that monthly pay can be found to be $9,966.

That's $56.63/hour.

That's not a particularly unusual wage in 2024; it's just that that not unusual wage isn't particularly widespread.

As best as I can tell, waiters, baristas, Uber drivers and contract slaves make up the bulk of America's current workforce.

Serfs.

All struggling to make $15.00 an hour.

26% of what they would need for parity with 1950, the minimum wage that has been bandied about since 2014.

And, in most cases, has never happened.

And where it has it isn't even close to enough to buy a house and start a family.

But then I am off on a favorite, non-productive rant. 

There are all sorts of things that can be said about this little presentation, just completed.

The one that shouts at me is this: in 1950 someone making the minimum wage could probably aspire to owning a home; in 2024 someone making the minimum wage can aspire to living in a dumpster and, probably, feed himself from that same source.

And, god help him, if that dumpster food makes him sick.

The numbers across the years all have the same names, but, somehow, some somebodies (for more read Kurt Andersen's book Evil Geniuses) have hoarded virtually all the "fat of this fair land" (quoting Merle Haggard) into their big, padlocked baskets.

Even the government can't get into those baskets.

Or has been afraid to try.

Or now that our incoming president has monetized the presidency, and instituted a reign of terror, who really can afford to give a shit?

The 1% has it all and, in ever diminishing tranches, the rest have the rest.

Half of almost nothing is still something, Zeno, has told us.

But half of nothing ain't worth nothing, so the song goes.

Or should go.

If there were such a song in the first place.

Which there isn't but there is this lyric, and it's perfect for donnieLand: it obfuscates reality and makes one puff up with self-defeating pride (kinda like when donnieLand plays that that bullshit Lee Greenwod lyric) until one thinks about what it is really saying; and then one gets really pissed.

"Freedom ain't worth nothin', but it's free" (quoting Kris Kristofferson).

Welcome to donnieLand.

Eggs are lookin' cheaper all the time.