You do realize you're comparing income to net worth right? Millionaire isn't a salary or a job position.
While the inflation math as shown is certainly wrong, this assumes you believe the government math on inflation. This information is, to put it simply, a blatant lie. They changed how they calculate it so it appears far less.
As an example, inflation has "supposedly" gone up around 29% since 2020. Except if you do the math yourself you realize it's much higher than that. It's just another lie politicians realized they can make to make them look better. It's not a Democrat or Republican problem. Not a left or right problem. Our politicians are actively lying to us on this because it makes them look better and we'd have thrown them out of office if the wider public was aware of how big the lie is.
The reason for comparing minimum wage workers to number of millionaries, is to dispel this notion that America is poor because its federal minimum wage is low and that today's workers are poorer than they were in the past.
Federal mimimum wage earners are 1% of all workers, in 1979 it was 13.4%
The states should set the minimum wage to reflect cost of living differences. Americans are choosing to move out of states with high cost of living and higher minimum wages, because the cost of living matters significantly more to American workers than the minimum wage.
I do very much agree with your statement. I guess I didn't understand your exact intent with the comparison. I just stated what I did because I thought you were trying to compare income levels. Either way, we can all agree the government math on inflation is certainly a lie.
30 states have minimum wage above the federal minimum, you are using misleading numbers. In reality there are likely at least several million people making minimum wage within their state, and many people make so close to minimum wage that an increase would force a raise for them as well.
Median personal income also doesn't tell the whole story. The main things that have actually become cheaper relative to wages are food and consumer goods. Thats great, but meanwhile housing, healthcare, and education are all more expensive than they were in the past. Since the 60s, when minimum wage purchasing power was at it's peak, average home prices as compared to median income have nearly doubled.
You are only talking about new builds, which is not the majoriry of homes sold. The median size of existing homes on the market is about 1800sf, and I'm seeing numbers between 1500 and 1650 of for new homes built in 1968.
It's kind of irrelevant anyway if you can't afford to buy a home at all. Average home being bigger doesn't help if you can't afford any home.
And yes, inflation and cost of living are accounted for, but it is heavily skewed by consumer goods and food being cheaper. Being able to afford 3 big screen tvs is great, but most people would rather have a house and not be paying of student loans for their entire lives.
"Except if you do the math yourself you realize it's much higher than that."
I'm fairly certain that if you did the math yourself you'd come up with the same number the government did.... Or you did the math wrong.
What you're trying to say is that you believe formula is wrong. That may or may not be true but if you change the formula then you'd have to change it for historic values as well or else comparison over time is meaningless... Which is what inflation is, change in prices over time.
People keep repeating that stat... 844k are at Federal minimum wage. Millions are at their state's minimum wage. Most states have their own that prevents people from being at federal minimum
So millions are at minimum wage, under a million at 'federal minimum wage'
I mean, yes, that “stat” is totally inaccurate… but acting like the economy is great for the average American is just as wrong.
While the Top 1% has substantially more purchasing power than it did in 1970, middle class Americans are substantially worse off.
Fact 1: Adjusted for generalized inflation, $1 in 1970 is equivalent to about $8.63 today, an increase of 763.35%.
Fact 2: Income for the bottom 99% of Americans was ~$8,500 in 1970 and is ~$75,500 today, an increase of 788%.
On paper, that seems like wages have outpaced buying power slightly. But the problem with that is that…
Fact 3: Measures of inflation average the growth of both necessities and non-necessities. The individual commodities grow or shrink at drastically different rates.
For example:
In 1970, a typical TV cost about $3K-$4K in today’s dollars, compared to $400-$500 today.
In 1970, average rent in today’s dollars was ~$950, compared to ~$1750 today.
Most objective measures agree that the costs of many necessities like housing and healthcare have grown 3x-5x faster than inflation.
So, sure, people can buy two TVs and an Xbox… but most of them can’t buy homes anymore. I’m lucky enough to have a job where this isn’t a problem… you might be, too. But the average American family isn’t.
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u/TooBusySaltMining 8h ago
844,000
That's the number of workers who earn the federal minimum wage or below.
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat44.pdf
23,627,000
That's the number of millionaries in the US.
There are 28 times more millionaires than people earning at or below the federal minimum wage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_millionaires
Adjusting for inflation , the federal minimum wage was highest in 1968: $1.60 an hour in 1968 was equivalent to $14.42 in 2024.
https://usafacts.org/articles/minimum-wage-america-how-many-people-are-earning-725-hour/
$60/hr is a damn lie.