This has been making the rounds on social media again:
The reason this is making the rounds is from a supposed ‘study’ finding that a person making minimum wage in 1970 has a lifestyle the same as someone making $100,000 per year today. That is pure, Grade-A horse shit. The above picture is where they got this from, and it’s easily tossed aside.
A person making the Federal minimum wage today gets $7.50 per hour, or $15,600 per year. If he is paid in $50 gold eagle coins, he would receive 312 of them in a year. Those 312 coins are made of gold and would have a melt value of $1,279,200. So I can say that a person making minimum wage today has the same purchasing power of someone who makes $1.2 million.
It’s just a bait and switch for idiots.
16 Comments
TRX · August 1, 2026 at 8:20 am
“It’s only money. You just print more of it.” [a sitting member of Congress]
Brutus · August 1, 2026 at 9:00 am
While it’s true that the melt value gives a large overestimate of minimum wage spending power in 1964, an inflation calculator using CPI states that it’s worth $13.47 in 2026. I generally think that the government stopped calculating CPI honestly in the Reagan-Clinton era. Minimum wage has certainly lost ground in the last several decades.
P.S. The comment form for your covid post seems to not load.
Michael · August 1, 2026 at 9:05 am
Might have a kernel of truth in that simplistic meme.
The minimum wage was never intended to be a “real job” to raise a family but a steppingstone for teens to get into the market building skills like Being RELIABLE and WORK ETHIC.
Did in 1964 a family have to have a wife in the workforce to have a reasonable chance to be “Middle Class”?
LOOKING around does having your wife working full time and PAYING for childcare give you a reasonable chance to become “middle Class”?
Looking at radically lower number of children in the “modern” two wage earners families because it’s too expensive to have children…
I’ll not bore you with data about inflation pre-Nixon taking us off gold standard.
Sound money historically has kept money printing limited.
Inflation “Too many Dollars chasing that gallon of milk”.
Divemedic · August 1, 2026 at 9:53 am
That is also false. While I disagree with FDR, this is what he said and where “living wage” came from:
Source: FDR Presidential Library
https://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html
Michael · August 1, 2026 at 2:54 pm
SNIP FDR’s 1933 Gold Executive Order (Executive Order 6102)
Executive Order 6102, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 5, 1933, forbade the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States Wikipedia. It was issued under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 (as amended by the Emergency Banking Relief Act of March 1933) during the Great Depression.
WHY did He do this?
SNIP The main rationale behind the order was actually to remove the constraint on the Federal Reserve preventing it from increasing the money supply during the depression.[citation needed] The Federal Reserve Act (1913) required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes that were issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost reached the limit of allowable credit, in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes, which could be backed by the gold in its possession (see Great Depression).
I’m reasonably sure your aware he took American families savings GOLD, forced them into Fiat at 20.67 ounce and then RE-Valued that same gold to 35 dollars and ounce thus giving those fine Americans QUITE A HAIRCUT in the value of their newly printed dollars.
Inflation here we come.
Inflation too many dollars chasing that loaf of bread.
Divemedic · August 2, 2026 at 7:47 am
Of course. Still doesnt make the above meme correct.
Also, women entering the workforce had much to do with increased prices and inflation
WallPhone · August 2, 2026 at 3:54 pm
Imagine if every year the government cut 3-11 % off your rulers every year.
Hammer a dent representing about five ounces into every gallon juice jug in your kitchen.
Pour a gallon’s worth of ball bearings into each of your car’s gas tanks, so they still accept the same number of adjusted gallons to fill them up.
Shrinkflation doesn’t matter anymore, the box might have ten fewer crackers in it now, but it’s adjusted weight number is the same as the bigger box they sold last year.
Just imagine, toilets and washing machines can use the same rated volumes of water, but they actually produce defacto wins for efficiency and the environment!
It’s essential we do this, you know. Otherwise, people might hoard gasoline and milk, and not drive or support our dairy industry.
We’d never accept any of our other measures of reality be redefined the way we accept the government’s continual redefinition of the standard measure of value.
Divemedic · August 2, 2026 at 6:01 pm
That isnt the point of this discussion, and you are falling into the trap laid for you by the communists.
A person making minimum wage 50 years ago was NOT living that kind of lifestyle.
C · August 2, 2026 at 9:26 pm
You’re not wrong at all. The idiots who share this meme refuse to admit the real problems with lack of great wages. They’ll fall on their sword before admitting it’s women in the work force and mass migration. Inflation is easy. Vote buying with the gibs and corruption.
Chuck · August 3, 2026 at 4:28 pm
While I don’t disagree with your point, your comparison is wrong in that the 90% silver quarter could actually be obtained for 25 cents. Tell me anywhere you can get a gold eagle for $50.
Divemedic · August 3, 2026 at 7:31 pm
Thats because, at the time those quarters were 25 cents, our currency was still pinned to PMs.
Chuck · August 3, 2026 at 10:42 pm
Yes. That’s kind of the whole point of the meme.
Divemedic · August 4, 2026 at 6:38 am
That’s not the way it’s being presented. They way I am seeing it used it to complain about how low the minimum wage and used to attack “capitalism”
Chuck · August 4, 2026 at 2:55 pm
The last two sentences state that we don’t need minimum wages, we need sound money.
Divemedic · August 5, 2026 at 6:20 am
We do, but don’t let this bit of misdirection fool you. The meme here is tricking you. Can you spot how?
Pay Attention – Area Ocho · August 5, 2026 at 6:37 am
[…] In my post the other day, I thought my readers would catch the sleight of hand. The person who made that meme is manipulating you, and I thought it was obvious. The person who made it is playing games with conversion math. They are converting from dollars to PMs, then claiming this as the basis of a ‘study’ finding that a person making minimum wage in 1970 has a lifestyle the same as someone making $100,000 per year today. […]