Richard D. Wolff

I have to disagree with the "real wage" part of this lecture. In 1967, when min wage was $1.25/hr, I was living in Mission Beach (San Diego) in a nice little beach house with dutch doors and two parking spaces right out front. In the winter, the beach and bay were virtually barren of people - so it was ALL MINE! I worked 25 hours a week, same as my husband. We owned a VW camper ($1K then, $40K now), he drove a Suzuki motorcycle and I commuted to high school on my Vespa, and our rent was $100/mo. We were a 1 min. walk to Mission Bay and a 2 minute walk to the Beach at Mission Blvd and San Jose Place. Years later, they had knocked our little beach house down and erected a 3-story box. To rent that place now would be at least $10,000/mo. To live in what remains of those tiny original beach houses would be at least $5,000/mo. 25 hours/wk at $1.25, even if you inflate it, would not give us the lifestyle we lived then. I figured that minimum wage would have to be at least $121/hr at FULL-TIME for me to experience any facsimile of the same lifestyle, which would still be impossible because it's an over-crowded mess now and the diversity has been lost (only wealthy East Coast immigrants/investors can afford it now.) Same thing happened in other places I've lived: NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago, San Francisco, Saratoga Springs, NY. Minimum wage would have to be closer to $300/hr for me to live in any of my old "stomping grounds." So, as you speak of "real wage," I tend to think you're assuming Davenport, Iowa, as your starting point.?