I recently saw on my twitter feed a post that said something like the title, but they didn't show their work on provide any sources. So I'm here to change it.
TL;DR
Yes, it's actually worse than "10x harder to get an SP500 share" it's actually 12,2x harder to get a SP500 share.
Send help.
1971
We can find a historical account of the Minimum Wage in the following page. Say what you will about inefficient Government agencies, but this type of data availability and organization is quite convenient. Regardless, we can see that the minimum wage between 1968 and 1974 was $1,60 per hour.
Using the following website we can check the monthly closing price of the S&P500. We can see that 1971 started the year at 93,49, and finished the year at 103.3 on January 1st 1972. Since we also have the monthly data, let's have some nuance in it and show some graphs.
As we can see, the average for the year was 61,43 hours, a week and a half of honest work. Not bad, you could definitely get a full share of the S&P500 every month if you were an avid saver.
2024
So what's the current status after 50 years of FIAT money?
Well, let's take a look. According to the website we used before, the current Minimum Wage is $7,25, and it's been this way since 2009. Granted, some states have different minimum wages, here are some examples:
- Washington DC: $17,50 per hour
- California: $16,00
- New York: $15,00
- Illinois: $14,00
- Florida: $13,00
Funny to see that Washington DC has the highest minimum wage. Regardless, we'll use the Federal Minimum Wage, since that's what we used for the 1971 calculation.
Meanwhile, the S&P500 started the year at around $4.8000 and finished the year at around $6.000.
Let's look at the graph then.
That's not very good. Not only is the graph up and to the right at an alarming rate, but also the average sits at 748,51. At full time employment on minimum wage, this basically means not being able to buy a single share even in a full year after expenses. Let's remember that minimum wage, full time, working 50 out of the 52 weeks in a year, yields you with $13.920.
What's the ratio
The ratio is 12,19. :)
May the hash be with you!
PS: thanks to @denlillaapan and his constant posting on SN for the inspiration. This time it was this #896143 post of his that inspired me.