I used the year that you suggested with your citation. That was your choice, not mine. Would you like to pick a different year from the 60’s. I’d be happy to post the numbers for any other year from that decade to illustrate that a person making minimum wage could afford a 2 bedroom apartment and a new car every 4 years.
That’s my point.
How is this germane? The goalpost is running down the field and is uncatchable at this point. I’m not going down the road of gender politics on this one either. Social injustice issues were and still are a big problem. They just don’t have anything to do with the spending power of minimum wage.
I’ve often thought about how I had a decade or so of inhaling lead fumes from car exhaust and I think it plays a roll in my more aggressive moments. The decline in crime when lead was taken out of our fuel is stark. But what caused the increase in crime during the 70’s when lead was in everything for decades before that? My take is that it was the Malthus model in action. As people become poorer, crime rose.
Ones sex and race have nothing to do with the buying power of a dollar. That someone might not want to sell or rent to a person does not mean minimum wage couldn’t pay for a thing. You are once again moving the goalpost when you see that your original position is untenable.
It of course had to do with the buying power of actual people.
This is like the Bernie criticisms of not respecting that more than just economics matters when talking about actual people’s lives and how they were and are lived.
If the comparison is - hey - look - in 1968 it was better for people! The question of which people is germane.
I will simplify the thought of this article in one frase written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa:
“Everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same.”
With all due respect, I think you’ve missed the point. KathyPadilla suggests a broadening of the comparison between then and now is appropriate, while you appear to keep wanting to score points in some narrowly constrained argument. I’d say it’s time to move on from that…
Kathy said there was no way a minimum wage worker could afford a 2 bedroom apartment and a new car every 4 years in direct response to me saying they could. When I showed her that the numbers checked out she started moving the goalpost. The only “narrow constraint” was me using the year she chose. This was a direct response to a direct rebuttal.
My point was that the PAY was sufficient and not that some people would or would not be able to rent due to discrimination. I’m not saying 1968 was some great year. I’m saying, as I said from the beginning post on this thread, that the pay was sufficient to keep one out of the bread lines.
Fun Fact: In 2017 the highest paid public employee in 39 states was a college coach.
Funner Fact: 9 of those coaches had been fired and were just collecting guaranteed salary!
ETA: (how could’ve I remissed!) Funnest Fact: The industry is built on a literal spectacle of unpaid, primarily POC labor (how odd!)
Put the three together, that’s capitalism in a nut. Go team!
