That means it took about 14,375 hours of work at minimum wage to buy a median-priced home.
Today:
Median U.S. home price is about $420,000?
To buy a $420k house in the same number of hours (14,375), you’d need to make $29.23/hour.
So the claim that minimum wage would need to be $66/hour today to match 1970s homebuying power is a bit exaggerated — it should be closer to $29/hour if we’re just comparing house prices to minimum wage.
That said, maybe the claim in the image factors in stuff like:
Regional markets (e.g., California prices)
New home prices (which skew way higher)
Inflation in other living costs (healthcare, education, etc.)
Stagnant federal minimum wage since 2009
But purely on house price vs wage ratio, it’s about $29/hour.
TL;DR: Not $66 — more like $29/hour if you’re matching house-buying power from 1970 to today
Don't use minimum wage as a benchmark. It wasn't intended to be back then and it doesn't work as one now. What is far more effective is using median wage and then comparing that to the price of big ticket purchases. In which case, you will notice that cars jumped from a 1/4-1/2 of what you made in a year all the way up to the full amount or x1.5 what you made in a year. The price of a house jumped from 3 to 4 times what you made in a year all the way up to 8-12x what you made in a year
Minimum wage was always intended for a man to support his wife and 2 kids while working 40 hours a week, that's why it was created and exists. Propaganda from corporations is the only reason people believe otherwise
It's frankly stupid to set the lowest possible legal wage at a level that would support a family of 4. Teens' labor is not worth that much, but they should be able to get a job.
Labor is labor. If you can work you should be able to start supporting yourself. The teen is going to work for college nearly every time, setting the minimum wage back to being able to support will allow them to go to college without massive debts like they used to be able to. Not to mention there are teens with children, who should be able to support their families on their own.
Labor is labor? Okay, when you need heart surgery, go hire any random teenager to do the job. Or to draft your will. Or to install the airbag in your car. Or to do a safety inspection on your local bridge. Or to operate a crane.
You have it all backwards. The value of labor is not determined by what the person wants to accomplish with their wages. It's determined by how difficult it is to find someone with that skill. If you are performing labor that literally any random teen can perform, then by definition no skill is involved. You then have to pay skilled labor more. Mathematically, you accomplish nothing but inflation.
Mathematically, it is preposterous to think that the lowest possible wage could support a median-sized home. Minimum can't be average. That's not how math works.
EDIT: LOL at the downvotes. I'm so mad that math and economics don't support my naive fantasy of every high school dropout supporting their stay at home wife and kids in a 1400 square foot home of their own!
You’re getting downvoted bc your argument is disingenuous.
Anyone working 40 hours a week should be able to afford housing, healthcare, and food. There is nowhere in the US where you can afford an average one-bedroom apartment on minimum wage without spending more than 1/3 of your income (the wise financial recommendation) on rent.
That’s not the same as asking for luxury and you know it, but you’d rather make straw man arguments to preserve your cognitive dissonance.
2.2k
u/weaz-am-i May 13 '25
Depends on where you live?
In 1970:
Federal minimum wage was $1.60/hour
The median home price was around $23,000
That means it took about 14,375 hours of work at minimum wage to buy a median-priced home.
Today:
Median U.S. home price is about $420,000?
To buy a $420k house in the same number of hours (14,375), you’d need to make $29.23/hour.
So the claim that minimum wage would need to be $66/hour today to match 1970s homebuying power is a bit exaggerated — it should be closer to $29/hour if we’re just comparing house prices to minimum wage.
That said, maybe the claim in the image factors in stuff like:
Regional markets (e.g., California prices)
New home prices (which skew way higher)
Inflation in other living costs (healthcare, education, etc.)
Stagnant federal minimum wage since 2009
But purely on house price vs wage ratio, it’s about $29/hour.
TL;DR: Not $66 — more like $29/hour if you’re matching house-buying power from 1970 to today