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How could Al Bundy afford a house when he was making minimum wage?
- likeabatterycar 3y agoBecause Al sold shoes at a time before we thought it was rational to pay someone $400k a year to write shitty Python code. Said average developers then banded together and built an e-commerce website that sold shoes drop shipped direct from the sweatshop and put Al out of business. No ma'am indeed.
- dougmwne 3y agoFrom the hilarious reddit replies, Al was making close to minimum wage at the time based on numbers from the show and realistic estimates of what 30% of a single minimum wage income could afford in south side Chicago. Seems that we have bigger problems than e-commerce when it comes to modern housing affordability!
- csours 3y agoYes, I think we should really tackle this after I sell my house for a million dollars. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/housing-should-be-affordable-except-when-i-sell-my-house-for-a-million-dollars https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/housing-should-be-afford...
- mixmastamyk 3y agoThe problem is not due to high salaries but rather a lack of housing supply.
- brailsafe 3y agoThe housing problem is heavily impacted by both, and policy surrounding whatever supply would hypothetically otherwise be there.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoIf there were too many homes it wouldn’t matter one bit what anyone made, price would go down.
- brailsafe 3y agoYou said it isn't due to high salaries, which is a relatively discrete variable, instead it's due to supply, which is an abstract variable related to many other things including the possible rate of supply change compared to who the existing supply is available to, and how much people making the supply are getting paid to make it compared to what it costs to be that person, each of which influences each other. Supply is simultaneously a very useful thing to measure, and a comparatively meaningless discrete part of a system.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoSounds like you're overthinking it? Fail to build enough housing for five+ decades and watch what happens. The situation is not a subtle one where we need to inspect the tea leaves. Not to mention real wages have stagnated for almost as long with 1%ers taking a larger and larger slice of the pie. Trying to blame the housing crisis on workers getting paid too much is misguided to say the least. Fire every programmer in the world and at most it might make a temporary minor dent in the housing market. Those "overly paid" tradesfolks would pick up the slack in short order.
- brailsafe 3y ago> Fail to build enough housing for five+ decades and watch what happens. True, but that's just an abstract measurement of what happened, not that interesting when trying analyze the parts that affect it. Particularly when it comes to different geographical regions. > Not to mention real wages have stagnated for almost as long with 1%ers taking a larger and larger slice of the pie. Trying to blame the housing crisis on workers getting paid too much is misguided to say the least, especially programmers, who are already all fired. Blame, particularly blame aimed at specific income earners, is a different thing than saying it obviously has an affect. Dismissing a part of the system that has an impact is as silly as suggesting it's the only culprit. But I also wasn't necessarily implying it's workers getting paid too much, that's just one of the bits that varies depending on context, but there's more than likely an inflow cash that currently and will continue severely outpacing supply, and whatever supply is created is often so expensive to build for a series of other reasons that it can only be marketed to an endless supply of buyers with an endless supply of money. Especially because of the reason you mention—decades of not building—one has to think of it as the complex system it is, with the bottlenecks and winners and losers it has. The whole thing doesn't work.
- imglorp 3y agoSalaries are relatively flat compared to costs of food, healthcare, education, etc, etc and especially housing. The income to COL ratio is what to watch.
- api 3y agoWe have very low unemployment and wages are higher. But housing is way more expensive than it was in the 90s. Housing is the big problem. Health care and tuition are the other cost disease centers. People today are better off and richer when it comes to everything except housing, health care, and tuition. I’ve heard these called “the big three.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those three things are all areas where we simultaneously restrict supply and subsidize demand.
- pydry 3y agoi.e. the three most necessary things. if you weight inflation baskets by how discretionary the spending is i dont think wages are higher. theyre much lower. you cant live in an iphone but you can easily live without one.
- api 3y ago“Inflation in core needs, deflation in everything else, wage stagnation.” This has been called in-deflation or disinflation and has been the dominant paradigm since the turn of the century, at least in the US and much of the developed world. The terminal end state of the disinflationary economy is desperate people living check to check but carrying supercomputers with instant access to all knowledge and all media in their pockets. Wages have risen a bit lately (in real terms even after inflation) but not nearly enough to undo 20 years of the above pattern.
- School-Cotton 3y agoPost-secondary education is not even close to being more important than food, transportation, clean water, etc.
- pitaj 3y agoFood, water, and clothing are cheaper than ever. Healthcare and tuition are less fundamental needs. So that really only leaves shelter as the one "most necessary thing" that has increased in cost.
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- tptacek 3y agoThe shoe stores that put Al out of business --- Al was an employee, not an owner, but whatever --- achieved market dominance long before anybody who wrote Python could expect $400k/yr. It's a funny dunk, but as a schematic description of what actually happened, it's not at all valid.
- WalterBright 3y agoHe was making bank from the royalty payments from the MwC reality show producer.
- thr0waway001 3y ago[flagged]
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- tptacek 3y agoThe follow-up comment, which is also interesting in its own right, constrains the Bundy house to 9600 addresses within the city limits --- but the Bundys live in a Chicago suburb. 95th street takes you through Evergreen Park, Oak Lawn, Chicago Ridge, Hickory Hills, and Justice; the latter suburbs are pretty blue collar and very white, or at least were when I grew up down there (I grew up in Beverly, where the comment attempts to place the Bundys, and: no way).
- kevinmchugh 3y agoThat comment forgetting that the Bundys are suburban means its conclusion that they live on the Southside is incorrect - there's plenty of West suburban houses in the 9600s. I think the house itself is a little unusual for any of the towns you named, especially Evergreen. A bungalow (in Evergreen), ranch or split level would be more typical. Your assessment of the demographics of those towns back then is accurate, btw
- justanotheratom 3y ago[flagged]
- hotnfresh 3y agoMy dad (high school diploma) blundered through his 20s with a series of gigs and barely-paying-the-bills solo businesses, had an expensive divorce (kids in the mix, too), a kid out of wedlock, then finally got his career going as he approached 35. Worked for a railroad. Started at the bottom, worked his way to upper-middle-management before the railroad sold, MBAs took over from career railroad guys in upper management, and they ruined his work-life with constant pointless meetings and having to put up with idiots who didn’t know how anything worked calling the shots, before ultimately “encouraging” him and a bunch of the other expensive career guys into somewhat-early retirement. FFS, he was literally raised in a barn—and not a nice one, and not one attached to hundreds of acres of valuable paid-off farmland or anything like that—they were a kind of poor that barely exists outside the homeless, these days. My mom was about 30 when they got married. Junior college stenography degree. Never worked for pay again after getting married. Dad was a railroad man (working class, nothing fancy) and mom a homemaker. They followed a playbook that’d spell doom today, but rode rising real estate prices and real honest-to-god pensions to a couple million dollars invested plus social security. We did a couple weeks of driving or (sometimes) air travel vacation every year. All the usual American Dream stuff. Shit was simply different for the Boomers. Almost every plausible life-path got downgraded a couple notches since then, in terms of quality of life and retirement outcomes. Except now everyone gets a shiny gee-whiz slate in their pocket. Hooray.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoPerhaps this is what reaching the top of an S curve looks like. There is no economic growth wave due to population growth wave to surf.
- alangibson 3y agoThis is a huge component of the answer. No one wants to hear it because of what implies for their agency, but demographics is destiny.
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- firecall 3y agoI love that the thread is on /r/AskHistorians! I'm not that old... but I remember watching the show! I guess it's like a show from the 60s was to me to a Gen Z or young millenial from today!
- chubot 3y agoWow, much better answer than I expected on Reddit!
- fngjdflmdflg 3y agoCurrent home ownership rate is 66%[0]. 1990 was 64.2% Some more rates from [1]: 2000 │ 1990 │ 1980 │ 1970 │ 1960 │ 1950 │ 1940 │ 1930 │ 1920 │ 1910 │ 1900 66.2% │ 64.2% │ 64.4% │ 62.9% │ 61.9% │ 55.0% │ 43.6% │ 47.8% │ 45.6% │ 45.9% │ 46.5% [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N [1] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/tables/time-series/coh-owner/owner-tab.txt https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/tables/ti...
- alangibson 3y agoThe phrase "home ownership" elides a lot of detail. What percentage of income is spent on the home now vs then? Probability that current owners will default due to major unforeseen cost, etc. Edit: nice formatting
- tpmoney 3y agoLast time I did the math on this using median incomes, median home prices and mid year interest rates for 1980 vs 2022 it was something like 24% vs 28%. I’ll see if I can find the math and sources
- alangibson 3y agoInteresting. I wonder if using medians is valid though. Incomes and prices are so localized that they may not represent what an actual human in an actual place could expect to be faced with. There's a whole lot of anecdata over the last few years that's not accounted for by a 4% increase.
- nerdponx 3y agoI agree, it doesn't make sense. Home prices just about everywhere in the US (including a lot of rural areas) went up way more than 4% between ~2020 and 2022, and that's with annual CPI inflation at <3%. Maybe some of that was eaten by the 2022-2023 inflation period, but I don't think either the increases in home prices or consumer prices were reflected in wages. I'm sure this can all be found in the right FRED time series; if someone has the motivation to dig for it, I'm happy to be proven wrong (but happier to be proven right).
- probably_wrong 3y agoI think a similar analysis could be made of The Simpsons, which (as the post mentions) started around the same time. While later retconned, it used to be the case that Homer could afford a house and sustain a family as the sole breadwinner and without a college degree. Edit 1 hour later: looks like the fine folks at /r/askhistorians have answered that too: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ol1uv6/the_simpson_family_was_supposed_to_represent_the/h5c740t/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ol1uv6/the_s...
- Aunche 3y agoEven when the Simpsons first aired, I highly doubt that you could get a job as a nuclear safety inspector without a college degree or highly specialized training like in the military.
- Probiotic6081 3y agoCartoons don't have to be 100% realistic.
- yuppie_scum 3y agoBurns made him safety director and gave him a raise strictly as a PR move. (S1E3 Homer’s Odyssey)
- Obscurity4340 3y agoIsnt Homet unionized at the plant? How can he be like low-paid doing anything nuclear? He's a nuclear safety inspector
- Obscurity4340 3y agoMr. Burns has never been one I associated with regulatory capture =D
- tptacek 3y agoIt was a throwaway gag on the Tracey Ullman show; I doubt much thought was put into the "interchangeable suburban house" they came up with, or Homer's income as a nuclear plant technician.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago(2020)
- guestbest 3y agoWell, he couldn’t afford the house which became a running joke unlike his car which was always broken down or wrecked. After a few seasons they finally started writing in scenes about his crippling debt and missed utility payments.
- dukeofdoom 3y ago1993: You'll be living in a van by the river 2023: If you save up $45k maybe one day you'll afford to live in a van by the river
- _huayra_ 3y agoFunnily enough, the amount of those luxury glamping-mobiles I've seen near me (Seattle) go up on Facebook Marketplace has exploded, but still are priced to nirvana. Those expensive toys are gonna be the first to go when people have to pare things down. Hold some dry powder now and those riparian dreams may be fulfilled at firesale prices in the not-too-distant future :D
- huytersd 3y agoDry powder? I know it’s not literal but what does that mean.
- garrettgrimsley 3y agoThe parent is saying that “dry powder” (i.e. cash) can be used to "pull the trigger" on a purchase of luxury vans when a rainy day comes along and the owner of the vans are forced to sell at reduced prices due to economic hardship.
- lacrimacida 3y agoThere is such thing as vanlords these days. They rent motorless vans or failint trailers from $400 to $1000 a month (California). I think they even tow you into a public parking lot for that money.
- simonblack 3y agoThese shows merely point out what was/is happening in the worlds of the past and present eras. In 1960 or thereabouts, a production-line worker at Ford, etc, earned about 100 bucks a week. On that wage he could afford 2-3 kids, a reasonable house, a reasonable car and could afford a stay-at-home wife. Todays' wages have not kept up with 'inflation'. More acurately, wages have not remained relatively constant in the face of declining buying-power of the US Dollar. To maintain parity with his grandfather's lifestyle, a production-line worker in today's factories would need to be earning about 5 grand a week. That ain't happening. That's why today a man and his wife are both working, sometimes with more than one job, and still can't make ends meet. reply
- arbuge 3y agoSince you are talking about Ford, it's worth pointing out that autoworkers in the US are still doing very well... even better since they recently renegotiated their contracts at strike-point. I am guessing that in 1960 they were doing relatively well compared to other factory workers also.
- supertimor 3y agoA quick google search says Ford assembly line worker salaries range from $20-38 an hour, with the typical wage of $28 per hour. It’s not a terrible salary, but I wouldn’t necessary say they they’re doing “very well”. If we’re going off of OP’s math, the average autoworker only has a fifth of the purchasing power that autoworkers had in the 1960’s. >”For decades, the UAW tugged wages upward. In 1960, a UAW member made 16 percent more than the average American manufacturing worker. By 2006, the figure was 74 percent. Today, new hires in the UAW make about 20 percent less than the average.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna37789668 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna37789668
- arbuge 3y agoHourly wages tell only part of the story here. Their benefit package, particularly their pensions, is very generous compared to that of most other hourly workers. Indeed compared to that of many non-hourly workers also, since most people now get only 401ks.
- paulpauper 3y agoHmmm...seems like this would be better suited for r/askeconomists . But the tired trope about the supposed affordability of homes 60+ years ago is contradicted by the data, which shows that home ownership rates are the same now as during the mid 20th century. Yes, homes are way more expansive, but also: more financing options 9such as longer duration mortgages), lower rates, and of course, higher wages. Inflation-adjusted wages have gone up for almost all income groups.
- ourmandave 3y agoFriends gets the same question. How they could afford to live in huge NY apts and always wear the latest fashions?
- jamestimmins 3y agoThis was directly explained IIRC, which is that they subletted one of their grandmother's rent-controlled apartments, which was technically against the rules but the super looked the other way.
- ecshafer 3y agoFriends is pretty obvious to me, they are mostly born rich. Other than Joey and Phoebe, who are shown as working class / poor and are also this in the show. Rachel's dad is a surgeon. Monica and Ross were in the same town in long island, and dad was an engineer iirc. Chandler had a good job, and his mom was a famous author. So you combine that with the rent controlled apartment, it makes plenty of sense.