Might as well use the latest numbers for this comparison. Yes, inflation is still absolutely sucking us all dry.

Just when boomers were young (8-23 yrs old) … totally tracks!

Looking at the linked graph, there’s a relatively clear plateau from ‘56 to ‘80 … basically from oldest boomers being age 11 to youngest boomers being age 20. I’m a little astonished at how well it lines up with the whole fucking generation. Literally all of them, from the beginning of their teens to the end of their teens (at least), enjoyed the best minimum wage of the modern age.

It also, interestingly, justifies the seperate categorisation of the Jones generation (born 1960-1966) who were the first to see the steady decline.

Meanwhile the cost of living has increased 2077% in 85 years.

I'm 40 and min wage where I was was $5.25/hr if I recall. (Non-tipped job, tipped jobs were lower.) A 1 bedroom in my area at the time was about $700. I remembering being SO damn confused as to why someone working 40 hours on min wage wouldn't even pay for a 1 bedroom after taxes, much less utilities, car, food, etc. I redid the math over and over again, thinking I must be doing something wrong because school talked all about budgets and stuff...

...but no, school had just failed to tell me that min wage wouldn't actually cover a real-world apartment in my area.

It was all particularly stressful to me because I was in foster care in a group home as a teen, and I did work and school at the same time and they were prepping for us to go live on our own...and no matter how I did the math, I couldn't afford a real apartment on my own EVEN IF someone had been willing to rent to me w/out a co-signer.

If you lived in the US, your numbers (and your memory) are absolutely incorrect.

Editing to add info:

Assuming the previous commenter is actually 40 years old and lived in the US, the minimum wage would have either been $4.75 or $5.15 when they were 14 (not $3.25)...

In fact, minimum wage in the US has never been $3.25.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart

I've worked for a number of different companies since I was a teenager and first got a job. Without a doubt, the cheapest motherfuckers on the planet with the most squalid working conditions are the biggest companies I've worked for. I think part of the key to being a top corporation is being stingy as fuck.

Many are over double this... it's honestly a fucking joke at the federal level

Pennsylvania is $7.25 lol.

2 dollars of progress for 85 years... How much has productivity risen during that time?

You write that as if moving to a new country is just that easy.

If you're in Europe and have never visited, you might be surprised at just how huge the US is. That, plus having only two adjacent countries, makes leaving very difficult.

Oh yeah, plus you have to get into another country, most of which aren't super welcoming to immigrants, either.

because am born in the u.s.

💀

Difficult to escape.

It's a pretty nice country, it's got a little bit of everything. It has flaws, and as Americans we complain about them and try to get them fixed to constantly improve it.

I think a lot of the images of America being so bad comes from our overwhelming volume online.