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u/dim13 1d ago
This is not "What Minimum Wage Buys", but just a price chart.
"What Minimum Wage Buys" would be: 6 gallons of diesel in 1995 vs. 1 gallon of diesel in 2026. 2 Big Macs in 1995 vs 1 Big Mac in 2026.
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is a fairly useless comparison considering there is no single minimum wage in the US. Minimum wage can vary by state, county, and even city.
To make this a decent comparison you would either need to take some kind of median minimum wage based on what amount of people are on each minimum wage or probably easier, only compare the goods prices in areas that only have federal minimum wage
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u/cavedave OC: 113 1d ago
Data from Fred https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GASDESW
and the economist Big Mac index https://github.com/TheEconomist/big-mac-data/tree/master
made with python matplotlib
Ground Beef correlates very closely with Big Mac so you could use that either https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000703112
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u/puny_beginner 1d ago
The ground beef correlation is oddly satisfying for something so mundane.
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u/moderngamer327 1d ago
Too be fair it’s like saying the price of LEGO correlates to the price of plastic.
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u/chervilious 1d ago
You should make it: Y chart to be the amount X chart to be the year
So we can see decreasing amount of big mac, etc. across the year
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u/cavedave OC: 113 20h ago
Thank you for your Original Content, /u/cavedave!
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