75 years doesn’t change much
Published by Glen on Saturday 12-Jul-2008
75 years ago today, the United States government enacted the minimum wage.
In 1933, that was $0.40/hour. What’s interesting is that if you take 75 years of inflation (a bit more than 1500%) as well as the cost of living index (which has risen from 13.1 to nearly 220) you end up with an adjusted minimum wage of $6.70/hour.
The federal minimum wage for 2008 is set at $6.55 which is very close to the 1933 adjusted figure.
24 of states have set minimum wage higher than the federal level.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:41
Interesting! Although I’m not surprised. Can you do the math for avg salary and avg cost of living?
July 13th, 2008 at 13:44
I didn’t find anything for “average salary”. As for “average cost of living”, there is actually a broad list of items that the government uses (including groceries, housing, utilities, transportation, health care, and miscellaneous goods). My understanding is they add the total of all those items and compute a cost of living. They use the same list year after year. So, if you use either the CLI or the inflation, you should be able to compute your “buying power” for 1933. E.g. if you had $5 to spare for a gallon of gas, that would be about $.30 in 1933.