Clint · The Baseline
A McDonald's worker.
July 1971.
What could they afford?
The federal minimum wage was $1.60/hr. A full-time week paid $64. Today's minimum wage worker earns $13.65/hr — almost identical in real purchasing power. But the things they're buying? Very different story.
The wage — then vs. now
1971
$1.60/hr
$3,328/yr full-time
2026
$13.65/hr
$28,392/yr full-time
CPI-adjusted, $1.60 in 1971 = ~$13.61 today. The wage has gained exactly 4 cents in real terms over 55 years.
3–5×
more expensive in real wage terms
Housing, cars, and college now cost 3 to 5× more hours of minimum wage work than they did in 1971.
Five categories — tap to explore
The problem isn't that wages collapsed. It's that wages stagnated while the cost of building a stable life exploded. The same hours of work buy roughly the same groceries — but a home, a degree, or a car now costs 3 to 5× more of those hours than it did in 1971.
One cost 1971 didn't have.
The average person today spends $127/month on subscriptions — a category that didn't exist in 1971. Clint connects to your Gmail and Google Drive and shows you exactly what's in that number.