Were things really that different during the 1980s? Nowadays owning a house and raising children would be with minimum wage is very unusual. However, I have a feeling that even that portrayal was not entirely realistic.
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Al Bundy was supposed to be a loser because he worked minimum wage, yet he was able to afford a house and 2 children
- Thread starter HomokHarcos
- Start date
This actually interests me...
Did he literally work minimum wage? For the entire show? I feel like that's accurate, as he was a shoe salesman in a mall, but can't remember
Peggy didn't have a career, right? Pretty sure that was part of the joke...
Do we know how he acquired the home? They always lived in the same one. Maybe his parents died and left him the house or some money for a down payment?
His kids were teenagers when the show started? So he would have bought in the 70s? And where was this? Chicago suburbs? What was real estate like back then?
Did he literally work minimum wage? For the entire show? I feel like that's accurate, as he was a shoe salesman in a mall, but can't remember
Peggy didn't have a career, right? Pretty sure that was part of the joke...
Do we know how he acquired the home? They always lived in the same one. Maybe his parents died and left him the house or some money for a down payment?
His kids were teenagers when the show started? So he would have bought in the 70s? And where was this? Chicago suburbs? What was real estate like back then?
Maybe that was his family's house and he never bought it, some people don't move out of their family's place (haven't seen it)
I seem to recall the home being mentioned as the historic Bundy "estate" and such. It seems like he couldn't afford a house, it was left to him.
Biden town hall suggests you can make $15/hr and be middle class so I guess it's not that unreasonable.
Yep... maybe not the minimum wage part, but my Dad worked in the trades during the 80s and 90s and ours was a single income family with five people... we never starved and they owned their own home. This is all an example of how far they destroyed the middle class with Reganomics and rampant inflation.
Is Homer supposed to be minimum wage? He's technically like a nuclear safety engineer or something, isn't he?
Like, he doesn't deserve the job by any stretch of the imagination, but the job itself isn't bad.
Was something my family and I always noticed as well. Even today there are shows where I'm like "who is working, and paying for all of this?"
Most recently watched Euphoria and it was taking me out of the show a bit because I kept thinking "who is paying for any of this and why do none of these 17-18 yo kids have job?" Like Cassie and Lexi live in an amazing home and their mom is seen at home at all hours of the day drinking wine non stop and their dad left them and is a drug addict that has to steal fine China from them to pay for his next high. So what gives? I eventually get over it, but I always feel like the odd person out for noticing it.
Most recently watched Euphoria and it was taking me out of the show a bit because I kept thinking "who is paying for any of this and why do none of these 17-18 yo kids have job?" Like Cassie and Lexi live in an amazing home and their mom is seen at home at all hours of the day drinking wine non stop and their dad left them and is a drug addict that has to steal fine China from them to pay for his next high. So what gives? I eventually get over it, but I always feel like the odd person out for noticing it.
Thats probably even worse than minimum wage, with the amount of customers he drove away.
A Nuclear Safety Inspector is NOT a minimum wage job. Homer should've been making anywhere from 70k-100k depending on factors. Still probably not enough to afford a 4 bedroom house + expenses, but that's probably why they're always broke.
I looked it up how much a nuclear safety engineer makes and they make about $93,000. So Homer Simpson does make good money, enough to support Marge, Lisa, Bart and maintain a steady home.
Homer has is good as a middle class worker.
Eh, Roseanne had a pretty justifiable setup. They lived in a low wage working city, had a moderate sized house with two working parents, and making ends meet because of money being tight was kind of the crux of the show (up until the last two seasons)
Honestly, it's a good illustration of how generational wealth works - that your parents and their parents owning land and other necessities makes "living wage" look very, very different from group to group.
You don't see many sitcoms about white families jammed into apartments and condos. The "floor" looks very different for that demographic - though that's changing rapidly.
You don't see many sitcoms about white families jammed into apartments and condos. The "floor" looks very different for that demographic - though that's changing rapidly.
Even without going too far into the weeds with the details... Al and Peggy are probably mid to late 30's at the start of the series... so we're not even talking about housing prices in the 80's but likely housing prices in the 70's. And back then there was a much more clear cut Lower/Middle/Upper class. So I don't think them owning a home all that far fetched, especially as the show constantly talked about them not being able to afford food and things like that, so one could assume most if not all of the money went to basic necessities.
The Simpsons is similar but they live in an even smaller town and Homer works at the Power Plant, the largest company in the town which is probably basically Springfield's lifeline.
The Connors... I can't really recall enough details about but I remember it also being a small town and the family being portrayed as barely being able to keep their heads above water.
Basically in all of these examples, you can't just look at the size of the house but also consider the town they live in and the housing prices relative to when they would have first purchased. The Bundy's probably live in the most expensive area since it was Chicago suburbs but it was likely still a purchase made before Minimum Wage and Cost of Living were as wildly far apart as they are now.
The Simpsons is similar but they live in an even smaller town and Homer works at the Power Plant, the largest company in the town which is probably basically Springfield's lifeline.
The Connors... I can't really recall enough details about but I remember it also being a small town and the family being portrayed as barely being able to keep their heads above water.
Basically in all of these examples, you can't just look at the size of the house but also consider the town they live in and the housing prices relative to when they would have first purchased. The Bundy's probably live in the most expensive area since it was Chicago suburbs but it was likely still a purchase made before Minimum Wage and Cost of Living were as wildly far apart as they are now.
I don't know about owning a home but you could probably have a roof over your head at least back then. You might still be homeless working multiple jobs or one missed paycheck away from it nowadays
I just finished Euphoria and didn't even notice this because my mind was too preoccupied wondering why the teachers weren't spending the entire school day handing out dress code violations to the students like would've happened to all those kids at my school.
Doesn't Homer work in a nuclear power plant though? I'm sure he has to be making some decent money.
We actually see Homer's pay one episode and it isn't great
Just did the math and before taxes, Homer makes $24,523.20 a year. It is literally impossible for him to afford a house + utilities + groceries + other expenses with that, but I guess we're not supposed to question it...
I think times were legitimately different. There's a chance they could have rented a house back then, but yeah, it seems a bit unrealistic.
We actually see Homer's pay one episode and it isn't great
That damn homer tax
That should be enough, assuming Springfield ain't California.
I make the low end of that range and can afford a 5/3 for a family of six (paycheck to paycheck mind you)
Burns skimped everywhere though, and Homer only had a high school diploma. The safety inspector position was only created for Homer as a way for Burns to get him off his back when Homer became an activist after getting fired.
According to this, you see in one episode one of his pay stubs which suggests he makes 11.99 an hour:
https://www.vox.com/2016/9/6/12752476/the-simpsons-homer-middle-class
Not minimum wage, but still not great. Interestingly if Homer were a Springfield, OR resident that would fit in with the median income level though.
Homer's a safety inspector at a nuclear power plant. That's probably a well paying career. The question is WHY is someone as incompetent as him allowed to have that job. Can't really explain the Connors situation
Edit: just saw the post above explaining why and good lord he shouldn't be able to afford rent let alone feeding himself and his family too
Yeah, I live in SoCal so I'm very biased in assuming no way in hell could you afford a house with that pay -_-
As a kid the weirdest one of these to me was Kramer. How the fuck was he able to afford an apartment in NY?
This sideplot in this episode was like a dream scenario for me as a kid. You, by some technicality, are endowed with a giant piece of real estate that you and a friend can fuck around in.
It's also an example of the layered joke-telling that made classic Simpsons so good. It doesn't matter that the factory is rundown and Bart acquired it for nothing and Frank Grimes doesn't knowit, it just adds to Grimes' disillusionment with the situation he's in
There's also the meta joke about Homer going to space that flirts with the idea that they've passed the point where they ran out of grounded stories to tell in the show
Don't ask him to explain how the economy works
That's the HOMEOWNERS tax
He gets by
It was a brilliant melding of the episode subplot into the A plot. Really was the golden age of that show.