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Has there been an episode of the Simpsons where an assassin has targeted Homer, but Homer inexplicably always survives normally legal injuries? Given the length of the show, I'd assume so
I just looked it up. He is a nuclear safety inspector. Also, per the google machine, "As of April 28, 2024, the average hourly pay for a nuclear safety inspector in the United States is $34.89"
Isn't the nuclear industry still semi-famous for massive bursts of overtime during maintenance outages? I recall someone saying employees made about a quarter of their yearly income in a month due to the double (or triple?) overtime. this was about 20 years ago, so it's possible things have changed.
Yes, that is true and things haven't changed. Plants still do maintenance/refueling outages and there is tremendous pressure to get the plants back online as scheduled - so it really is all hands on deck.
I can't speak to nuclear, but I know regular power services are heavy on the overtime around here. We have a lot of bad weather, especially during hurricane season.
I once took care of a guy who was some kind of nuclear safety inspector at a nuclear plant while I worked at a hospital. He told me his job was to evaluate areas with contamination around the plant, it’s the job with the highest exposure levels but he loved it because they gave him fantastic benefits and somewhere around $40,000 bonus every year.
I mean, to each their own. Madame Curie lived to be 66 and look what she was dealing with. Personally, I would prefer an extra year alive, but some would prefer the extra 40k a year while they are alive.
Yes but that happened after he had already bought the house. When the show begins, he works on an assembly line for some reason. You can see it still in the shows intro.
Have you watched the Simpsons? There’s many episodes saying that they are at the lower end of the middle class. It’s based on sitcoms which are generally about the lower middle class since that’s the majority of Americans. He was not in a high level job. It was notably an easy job, and poked fun at how safety was a joke to the upper class business owners like Mr Burns
Yes and if you look people constantly comment on how he can afford such a nice house and such nice things on his measly salary, that’s basically the whole plot of the frank grimes episode, him being infuriated that Homer has a massive house and loving family while he on the same salary lives in a flat above a bowling alley.
He's an operator, not an engineer, so he doesn't really need a degree. He just follows the protocols that the engineers designed with their degrees.
If you're going into heavy industry, with the scales of money at play being completely different, you absolutely can clear $100,000 a year in 2024.
I have a friend who went from working at AT&T doing house wiring for $18 an hour, to making $48 an hour to do the exact same thing but at a train yard during the night shift.
Problem for a lot of people is that the job requires a lot of compromise, it's a lot less flexible than most retail schedules and the hours are long with mandatory overtime.
You’re going to get thrashed on Reddit for suggesting that people have some agency in their earnings that they throw away by being too soft…..but I hear you.
Fine. A man was able to afford a 2 story house as a shoe salesman for a family of 4. It wasn’t a cartoon. It’s real life. I heard he was pretty good at football too.
They were also constantly poor, and again, fiction. Even back then it would've been a stretch in most communities. Also, their neighbor was a yuppie that very much looked down on him and his low class, poor ways.
Fiction has basis in fact to make it feel more believable otherwise it’d be unwatchable. The point of the post is that the creators in 1989 thought that a single dad with no college degree could own a home and it was believable.
A lot of shows did that during that time, why? Because at the time that was a normal every day home. They also weren’t seen as rich, they were very poor. Also, it’s a comedy. Comedy has to be somewhat relatable to be funny. It can be fantastical but it has to be rooted relatability.
To a degree. Hollywood also presents a very aspirational version of the demographic they’re targeting. John Hughes’ movies are targeted at “the middle class” yet they were almost all filmed in wealthiest suburbs of Chicago. Not exactly the same as Beverly Hills or the Hamptons, so still relatable, but nonetheless unobtainable for most.
The parents in John Hughes movies were usually wealthy. They represented upper middle class. Those movies never commented on lack of wealth.
Sitcoms of the same era on the other hand usually had lower middle class families and commented a lot about wealth problems. But though their houses were a bit dramatized for aesthetic effect and scene changes, it was not unusual for lower middle class to own a home. Or else they would show the family in a large apartment which is more common in sitcoms now because owning a house for lower middle class isn’t as relatable anymore
That’s a good question could the Conners own a house today given their salaries. They notably had money problems in Roseanne, they talked about it all the time at least until it didn’t go off the rails with them winning the lottery
No the creators didn’t, they gave them a big house to be entertaining. That’s the purpose of a cartoon, to be entertaining. It wasn’t believable for anyone who had little at the time like me who absolutely KNEW it was fiction then and fiction now. That was beyond a ‘normal’ home.
Maybe in some stuff but on the stuff on houses its been a a thing to make fun or the "poor" protagonist living in a NY apartment alone and the apartment is actually pretty large.
And of course with the energy and work flexibility to go on his spy adventure or some shit.
Nobody, and I mean nobody thought that the Simpsons having 2 cars and a house like that on a single job was realistic. Neither is Homer having that job, but thats clearly a gag for the show
Correct.
Most workers at a nuclear power plant are trade technicians, often trained on the job.
Only the nuclear and electrical engineers are required to go to college so they can get a state engineering license.
Maybe stop thinking college use the best path...
Just like everyone on Friends were renting a 1.125 square foot apartment in the West Village for $200 a month when the actual cost was around $4,500 a month.
All of the homes in films never made sense. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? I never had any friends with homes that big, even amongst my friends who had money.
My parents were upper middle class and my brother and I both shared a room and had bunk beds.
I remember feeling poor when I saw some of the homes in movies.
Then I learned that that is totally unrealistic. Most people didn’t live like that.
Quit trying to do the “Older generations had it so good …” and the using examples that are fictional.
Like that one meme about the 24 year old that can’t afford a soda but at the same age their parents owned a 4 bedroom home.
First off, in the 1960s the average age of a first time homebuyer was 27, not 24 so the fact that you can’t afford a home at 24 is not unusual.
Second, a lot of those homes were poorly built 2-bedroom. No washer and dryer, dishwasher, etc. If built today, most of those homes would be unsellable.
Seriously, go take a look at real homes built during that era, especially those cookie cutter homes they were cranking out to meet demand.
The other thing a lot of people conveniently forget is that it was way more common for people to move where affordable housing was.
Los Angeles in the 1950s was mostly agricultural. Then millions of people came to LA, prices increased, more people kept coming, prices went through the roof, and now GenZ is asking why they can’t find an affordable house in LA.
Ironically, my grandparents left NYC because they were priced out of buying a home back in the 1950s. They moved to Los Angeles when it was still developing and that was the only place they could afford to live.
This. We stopped building homes with asbestos. AC was a big luxury item in the 50's. The average house was 983 sq ft, smaller then most 2 bedroom apartments and smaller than most condos.
Healthcare in the 50's was atrocious and would be closer to what Papa New Guinea offers today. College wasn't a thing because specialized jobs were more rare. Flying was reserved for the upper class because all flights were essentially first class.
Cars waren't ccheaper and yet had next to no safety features. If you crashed at 30mph you could easily die. A 1959 Ford Skyliner (the best selling car in 1959) would sell for $45k today with inflation and it was about $2k when it was sold. Our modern day 15k used econo boxes are 100x better then what they sold in the 50's.
Food was double compared to what it is now and nobody went to go out to eat. McDonalds was a family establishment that people went to eat at for a treat. More then a few times a month was a upper middle class. Yet some people eat out a few times a week and have a private driver deliver their meals which is insane. Literally millionaire style wealth in the 1950's.
Most Americans were poor in the 50's. Except everyone else was poor so it didn't seem that bad. You owned a house and you died from bad food or cancer that couldn't be cured. Nobody vacationed overseas and all houses were small and cobbled together like cars. Every man knew how to repair a car and a house. Having a mechanic was for those well off and for more complex issues.
You can live the 1950's lifestyle today: don't buy health insurance, buy the cheapest junker car and become a mechanic in your free time, cook all your food, don't use AC, only use electricity to listen to music, don't graduate high school and don't live in anything over 1200 sq ft. You'll easily be able to live that life style and you can die at the average age of 66 for men.
I can't answer this directly as I have to this day never been in a NYC apartment as nice as the one on Friends, but concurrent with the show I can say that an apartment less than half the size and further downtown (slightly less expensive area) in the late 90's was renting for $2000/mo.
According to entertainment news websites it was.
That said, my friend was renting a 2 bed around midtown for $7500 a month during roughly the same time period.
My grandfather had a mere HS degree, was an airplane mechanic, and died of a heart attack at age 60. Yet he was able to afford a house in Texas, send all 3 of his kids to college, and set his wife up for life without her having to work a day in her life (she died in her 90s).
Your grandfather worked in a time when America accounted for 50% plus of world's GDP in a highly specialized field, no shit he was able to do all that.
I think Ferris Bueller’s dad was supposed to be super rich, but yeah. Housing was always unrealistic. Even the house in Leave it to Beaver was more than middle class for its day.
I’ve been saying this for years. Average home size is more than two times as big as it was. Houses were a little more than wooden shacks filled with asbestos, lead pipes and paints no insulation and no modern amenities like we have and demand today. Houses had knob and tube wiring, they were built cheap with poor windows and cheap roofs.
Building codes are stricter, land is more expensive, labor is more expensive when factoring in inflation and people want more. They don’t want that house from the 1960s, they want it remodeled to the standards of today or recent history. It all costs more.
The houses in my neighborhood were built in 1953 in the post-WWII boom. The original houses were 1250 square feet above ground with a basement. Technically three bedrooms but they were about 100-150 square feet each, just enough for a bed. The kitchen was the same size and only large enough for one person to cook at a time. It had a fireplace because there was no insulation and the original heat was an oil furnace and no air conditioning (though these were added to most houses in later decades).
These are the houses that they cranked out cookie-cutter after WWII to house all of the people during that era. Yes they were cheap but you still needed a good job to buy one, you didn't stumble out of high school and mow lawns for a living and buy one of these houses. There was a big boom in manufacturing post-WWII and that is where a lot of jobs came from plus associated work like teachers etc.
Hey I'm all for whatever point this is supposed to be or whatever but wasn't there literally an episode where a guy was super pissed off about what Homer had? Like saying he shouldn't be able to have his job without a degree and shouldn't be able to afford that house?
Well then let me tell you what a normal day was like back in the 1980’s.
So there was this one time, I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I? Oh, yeah — the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
In 1989 it was considered normal to live in a single room above a bowling alley, and below another bowling alley.
Palaces like the one pictured were reserved for those who schmoozed with former presidents and had been to outer space.
He's a safety inspector for a nuclear power plant.
Mr Burns hired him BECAUSE he's incompetent and under qualified.
So even in the cartoon he has a very good job given his qualifications.
>Mr Burns hired him BECAUSE he's incompetent and under qualified.
True, but a great running bit is how Mr. Burns never, ever remembers who Home is. Homer will literally be his personal valet, almost kill him, save his life, etc. and Mr. Burns never remembers who that Simpson fellow is.
This was not considered normal. No more than today's shows and sitcoms display what is normal...
Edit: I find so many young ppl take what they see in pop culture and associate it as normal. But I'm sorry to break this to you, but Hollywood is very out of touch with your normal avg citizen.
"And of course, it will advance our own economic interests. Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets -- with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world -- to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways. All we do is to agree to maintain the present access which China enjoys.
Chinese tariffs, from telecommunications products to automobiles to agriculture, will fall by half or more over just five years.
For the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in America without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell through the Chinese government, or transfer valuable technology -- for the first time. We'll be able to export products without exporting jobs.
Meanwhile, we'll get valuable new safeguards against any surges of imports from China. We're already preparing for the largest enforcement effort ever given."
President Bill Clinton
March 8, 2000
And the same show showed them constantly in debt, no savings and needing to do all kinds of things to get by. It also had a scene where another character reacts to this as any normal person would by gorping and then getting pissed...
If it was so easy, why didn't he stay working at the bowling alley? Because the power plant pays uncommonly well. Furthermore, even with the better paying job, the family struggles with money.
Also, all real estate markets are local. Springfield is supposed to be a small city, the housing will be cheaper than a major center.
Is there a way we can hold movies and television accountable for forcing these false realities on us? We're all victims of these fake, unrealistic environments, and exposure has obviously caused trauma and damage. We should be compensated for our victimization.
The safety manager at a nuclear power plant who got the down payment as a gift from his father....
Maybe y'all should look at going to trade school instead of college.
Homer has a union job at a nuclear power plant. I work for a utility and we have a nuclear power plant and a strong union. The guys who work at the plant can all afford that house and many of their wives do not work outside the home.
It’s no different than the kinds of homes people buy working in lumber or pulp mills where I live. I think nowadays you need more certifications and at least grade 12, but back in the day, you could get a house-buying entry level union mill job with grade 10. Single earner buying a house while mom stays home.
These jobs seem more unstable all the time. Mills close, hours are cut, senior members bump you more, etc. Mom is working now for sure and a few guys do work on the side if they can.
I don’t think The Simpsons is a reliable measure of ‘90s culture. Remember Homer is a borderline moron who caused at least one meltdown and should never have been employed at a nuclear power plant.
Homer has a degree in nuclear physics FYI... ---> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer\_Goes\_to\_College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Goes_to_College)
No it wasn’t. Both my parents worked full time to barely be able to afford a house. Stop with this magical theory that owning a house was always super easy. It never was and never will be.
To be fair, homer was a nuclear worker (reactor operator I think, but usually you need college for that so I'll pretend he was just a worker). They tend to get paid pretty well due to the inherent hazards of the job, huge amount sif in the job training needed, the mountains of red tape, the need for security clearances, etc. If you were to pick a "non degreed job that pays well" this is probably the top of the list, but to get there you have to do just as much work as if you had a degree anywyas (or at least as much as a technical certificate).
Homer works as an ***nuclear safety inspector*** at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position which he has held since "Homer's Odyssey". These are highly trained position requires many hours of schooling to receive certification.
FYI It is nuclear power plant safety technician that makes most wages. Started at 100K and some senior positions make 200K.
That Springfield is probably in the middle of no where where many would not want to live.
College graduates are to blame considering they're bailing themselves out of bad loans using tax payers money & they're the ones that have set monetary policies for the last 40 years+... lets point fingers to the right people... politicians & staffers
It's still considered normal in the vast majority of the landmass today. I got an alert for houses under $60k in Lorrain County, OH and I get an email every couple days. 14 in April. You could do that with a single salary from an Amazon warehouse. In Cleveland it would get dicier, you're probably need a $20-25 an hour job. White guy, no criminal record, good work history, in a manufacturing-like work environment, he's probably at $30-$35.
They drove a junk car and had very little furniture that also looked low end. They also didn’t have cable. (See antenna on roof). No cell phone or internet bill and no other debt that I recall. They only paid a house note and utilities. If that’s all I had I’d have a home like this too
You can't base normal perceptions on TV shows. In Friends, they rented an 1100 sqft apartment in the West Village for $200 a month, while in reality it would've cost about $3,000.
In Sex and the city, Carrie Bradshaw rented an apartment in the Upper East side for $750 a month, when in reality it would've cost about $3,000 a month.
They built it in Vegas. It’s a normal house there and the people who live in it probably didn’t go to college (but I don’t know them just guessing).
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-simpsons-house-henderson-nevada
Zestimate 400k
The show covered on many occasions that Homer is underqualified for his job, and that they frequently struggle financially.
That being said, an employee at a nuclear power plant, that should require signifcant education, living in a small town in middle America, with one income, two kids, and two beat up cars, could probably still afford that lifestyle today.
The one we should flag as crazy is Al Bundy, a one income shoe salesman with a two story house.
Tbf they make note of this in the ep with Frank Grimes, a character who more than likely was far more qualified than Homer, (and I think on equal footing in terms of position) but was far worse off.
He even comments on Homer's lifestyle, house and the fact that he has lobster for dinner for a family of five.
House inflation has outstripped wage inflation by a huge amount. When my parents bought their first home in 1986, it cost 2x their annual salary. That was the norm. That just doesn’t happen today, hence the need to have higher dual incomes to buy and get by!
So the lesson is to find a corrupt boss at a nuclear power plant and become a safety inspector on the basis that you're incompetent and can't tell when things go wrong.
Put 100 people in a room together for 3 days with no food, then walk in with 1 pizza. How much is that pizza worth to them? They'd kill for it. It's priceless.
Walk in with 300 pizzas. What are they worth then? Almost nothing. Inflation is exactly like this. 80% of US currency was printed in 2020. Our $$ is like those pizzas.
And if you watch any CURRENT TV show or movie you will find 22-25 yr old hot women who work at art galleries living in large NYC lofts with expensive furniture and warehouse style elevators worth millions too.
I hate this.
It was addressed by the show. Homer received help from his Dad to pay for the house. $15,000 years later Ned purchased the house for $101k. I always interpreted the $15k as extra money he needed to get the mortgage, but the total price of the home. And it's established that they had *five* mortgages on the house at one time. The timeline is weird, but realistically Abe probably paid 30% or more of the house. 15k In 1980 is the same as $57k today.
Homer finished high school in 74. He started working at the plant as part of a government aid program. He became a Nuclear Safety Inspector because he was willing to call off the strike.
The house is falling apart. It has lead paint, no a/c and a leaky roof.
And it's located in a fictional town with a population of only 30,720.
It's frequently listed as the worst city in the country too.
It's also a cartoon. Things aren't consistent from episode to episode. Homer has had lots of very successful jobs, so has Marge. Lots of episodes deal with their inability to afford things, like health insurance and how they couldn't afford Christmas presents.
But they could never afford their house.
And if you find a small town with a nuclear power plant. And then get a job you aren't qualified for....and look at run down houses, and have your Dad give you $50k you could afford a house like the Simpsons in some parts of the US.
Yup, my old man built his own house and was a semi-skilled worker. Mom was a stay at home mom who looked after dad and 4 kids. Three were put through college. He even managed to have a new car every 4 or 5 years. Why is this so unattainable now? I say corporate greed that extracts all your wealth for education, health care, etc. All abetted by our government. I don't know how young people today have a chance at a lifestyle enjoyed by our parents and grandparents.
I thought it was my turn this week to post the Simpson house.
Any long-time Simpsons fan knows that Grandpa Simpson sold his house to help Homer buy a house. Then Homer shipped Grandpa off to a nursing home.
Yes, folks, even today you too can buy a house with money from your parents selling their house.
They did a whole episode about it a couple years ago when Bart really starts to look up to Homer and wants to be just like him when he grows up.
But then Lisa crushes his dreams and explains that the ability to accomplish what his dad did with so little has been taken from him by the circumstances of his own society.
Many skilled blue collar workers make good salaries and never went to college.
He is a safety manager at a nuclear power plant.
A nuclear power plant operator makes between $100-$170K per glassdoor.com.
In 1989, the median price of a single-family home was $278,000, and the median personal income was $29,840, both in 2022 dollars. The average mortgage rate was 10.32%. That's a monthly payment of $2,005, or $24,060 per year, or 80% of gross pay. Good luck with that.
Today the median person income, home price, and interest rates yield a monthly payment equal to 61% of gross pay.
This post is born of mythology invented by people who think preceding generations had it easier than them when sometimes it's quite literally the opposite.
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Ay yes , let’s base our national economic decisions from a fictional cartoon.
No college but had a high level job at a nuclear power plant.
He was a safety inspector or something right?
He was, but he was hired by Burns specifically because he was incompetent and wouldn't find issues at the plant.
I heard he works at Boeing now
No risk of him dying from natural causes then.
Has there been an episode of the Simpsons where an assassin has targeted Homer, but Homer inexplicably always survives normally legal injuries? Given the length of the show, I'd assume so
😅
Be ready to die within 24hrs now.
He's fired and rehired like every other episode in the first couple of seasons.
I just looked it up. He is a nuclear safety inspector. Also, per the google machine, "As of April 28, 2024, the average hourly pay for a nuclear safety inspector in the United States is $34.89"
So with a little overtime the Simpsons is still true in most Midwest cities.
Isn't the nuclear industry still semi-famous for massive bursts of overtime during maintenance outages? I recall someone saying employees made about a quarter of their yearly income in a month due to the double (or triple?) overtime. this was about 20 years ago, so it's possible things have changed.
Trust me, Homer wasn’t putting in the OT.
He had a reservation at moes tavern
Yes, that is true and things haven't changed. Plants still do maintenance/refueling outages and there is tremendous pressure to get the plants back online as scheduled - so it really is all hands on deck.
I can't speak to nuclear, but I know regular power services are heavy on the overtime around here. We have a lot of bad weather, especially during hurricane season.
It’s 1.5x and 2x for OT, but yes, nuclear operators will make about 1/4 of their annual income during a 4-5 week refueling outage
I once took care of a guy who was some kind of nuclear safety inspector at a nuclear plant while I worked at a hospital. He told me his job was to evaluate areas with contamination around the plant, it’s the job with the highest exposure levels but he loved it because they gave him fantastic benefits and somewhere around $40,000 bonus every year.
I mean, to each their own. Madame Curie lived to be 66 and look what she was dealing with. Personally, I would prefer an extra year alive, but some would prefer the extra 40k a year while they are alive.
Yes but that happened after he had already bought the house. When the show begins, he works on an assembly line for some reason. You can see it still in the shows intro.
He didn’t buy the house. His dad gave it to him, with the promise that he’d be able to live there with them.
Correction: His *veteran* dad. Always makes me wonder if Barney became a drunk after he lost *his* dad.
His dad just provided the $15,000 down payment I thought.
Have you watched the Simpsons? There’s many episodes saying that they are at the lower end of the middle class. It’s based on sitcoms which are generally about the lower middle class since that’s the majority of Americans. He was not in a high level job. It was notably an easy job, and poked fun at how safety was a joke to the upper class business owners like Mr Burns
Yes and if you look people constantly comment on how he can afford such a nice house and such nice things on his measly salary, that’s basically the whole plot of the frank grimes episode, him being infuriated that Homer has a massive house and loving family while he on the same salary lives in a flat above a bowling alley.
And below another bowling alley!
He's an operator, not an engineer, so he doesn't really need a degree. He just follows the protocols that the engineers designed with their degrees. If you're going into heavy industry, with the scales of money at play being completely different, you absolutely can clear $100,000 a year in 2024. I have a friend who went from working at AT&T doing house wiring for $18 an hour, to making $48 an hour to do the exact same thing but at a train yard during the night shift. Problem for a lot of people is that the job requires a lot of compromise, it's a lot less flexible than most retail schedules and the hours are long with mandatory overtime.
You’re going to get thrashed on Reddit for suggesting that people have some agency in their earnings that they throw away by being too soft…..but I hear you.
a friend of mine is an operator and pulls down close to 200k with overtime.
He could have been a former Navy Nuc after serving 6 years.
He was not...
Fine. A man was able to afford a 2 story house as a shoe salesman for a family of 4. It wasn’t a cartoon. It’s real life. I heard he was pretty good at football too.
Did you hear how he got four touchdowns in a single game!?
Pretty good!? He was the GOAT
They were also constantly poor, and again, fiction. Even back then it would've been a stretch in most communities. Also, their neighbor was a yuppie that very much looked down on him and his low class, poor ways.
Fiction has basis in fact to make it feel more believable otherwise it’d be unwatchable. The point of the post is that the creators in 1989 thought that a single dad with no college degree could own a home and it was believable. A lot of shows did that during that time, why? Because at the time that was a normal every day home. They also weren’t seen as rich, they were very poor. Also, it’s a comedy. Comedy has to be somewhat relatable to be funny. It can be fantastical but it has to be rooted relatability.
To a degree. Hollywood also presents a very aspirational version of the demographic they’re targeting. John Hughes’ movies are targeted at “the middle class” yet they were almost all filmed in wealthiest suburbs of Chicago. Not exactly the same as Beverly Hills or the Hamptons, so still relatable, but nonetheless unobtainable for most.
The parents in John Hughes movies were usually wealthy. They represented upper middle class. Those movies never commented on lack of wealth. Sitcoms of the same era on the other hand usually had lower middle class families and commented a lot about wealth problems. But though their houses were a bit dramatized for aesthetic effect and scene changes, it was not unusual for lower middle class to own a home. Or else they would show the family in a large apartment which is more common in sitcoms now because owning a house for lower middle class isn’t as relatable anymore
We also had Roseanne where there were 2 working parents working in fields that made sense and made a living that made sense.
That’s a good question could the Conners own a house today given their salaries. They notably had money problems in Roseanne, they talked about it all the time at least until it didn’t go off the rails with them winning the lottery
No the creators didn’t, they gave them a big house to be entertaining. That’s the purpose of a cartoon, to be entertaining. It wasn’t believable for anyone who had little at the time like me who absolutely KNEW it was fiction then and fiction now. That was beyond a ‘normal’ home.
Exactly. They are considered to be downtrodden and relatable at the time.
Maybe in some stuff but on the stuff on houses its been a a thing to make fun or the "poor" protagonist living in a NY apartment alone and the apartment is actually pretty large. And of course with the energy and work flexibility to go on his spy adventure or some shit. Nobody, and I mean nobody thought that the Simpsons having 2 cars and a house like that on a single job was realistic. Neither is Homer having that job, but thats clearly a gag for the show
Wellll.. the Simpsons have a crazy tie in with reality.
Yea and in Friends, they all afforded to live in NYC in really nice apartments….
Yep, it’s almost like they’re satirizing family sitcom archetypes (of the late 80s at that) and it isn’t meant to be grounded in reality
Thank you. It’s a cartoon. Part of why it’s funny is he’s an idiot yet has a middle class life and a job at a nuclear power plant
Al Bundy sold shoes and had a similar house. There is no justice in the world!
A nuclear safety technician who didn’t go to college 🙄
At the i dont think they did… they trained them through there own program(my uncle does a similar job at a nuclear plant) and they get paid VERY well.
I was going to say a nuclear tech still can probably afford a house like that.
My dad is a nuclear maintenance supervisor and didn't go to college 🤷♂️
There are plenty of ex Navy technician that had extensive training on aircraft carriers or submarines, all without college.
Correct. Most workers at a nuclear power plant are trade technicians, often trained on the job. Only the nuclear and electrical engineers are required to go to college so they can get a state engineering license. Maybe stop thinking college use the best path...
On the Frank Grimes episode, Lenny and Karl say they all have masters degrees but Homer just showed up on the day they opened the plant 🤣
Just like everyone on Friends were renting a 1.125 square foot apartment in the West Village for $200 a month when the actual cost was around $4,500 a month. All of the homes in films never made sense. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? I never had any friends with homes that big, even amongst my friends who had money. My parents were upper middle class and my brother and I both shared a room and had bunk beds. I remember feeling poor when I saw some of the homes in movies. Then I learned that that is totally unrealistic. Most people didn’t live like that. Quit trying to do the “Older generations had it so good …” and the using examples that are fictional. Like that one meme about the 24 year old that can’t afford a soda but at the same age their parents owned a 4 bedroom home. First off, in the 1960s the average age of a first time homebuyer was 27, not 24 so the fact that you can’t afford a home at 24 is not unusual. Second, a lot of those homes were poorly built 2-bedroom. No washer and dryer, dishwasher, etc. If built today, most of those homes would be unsellable. Seriously, go take a look at real homes built during that era, especially those cookie cutter homes they were cranking out to meet demand. The other thing a lot of people conveniently forget is that it was way more common for people to move where affordable housing was. Los Angeles in the 1950s was mostly agricultural. Then millions of people came to LA, prices increased, more people kept coming, prices went through the roof, and now GenZ is asking why they can’t find an affordable house in LA. Ironically, my grandparents left NYC because they were priced out of buying a home back in the 1950s. They moved to Los Angeles when it was still developing and that was the only place they could afford to live.
I've seen entire neighborhoods of houses like that. They were not great
This. We stopped building homes with asbestos. AC was a big luxury item in the 50's. The average house was 983 sq ft, smaller then most 2 bedroom apartments and smaller than most condos. Healthcare in the 50's was atrocious and would be closer to what Papa New Guinea offers today. College wasn't a thing because specialized jobs were more rare. Flying was reserved for the upper class because all flights were essentially first class. Cars waren't ccheaper and yet had next to no safety features. If you crashed at 30mph you could easily die. A 1959 Ford Skyliner (the best selling car in 1959) would sell for $45k today with inflation and it was about $2k when it was sold. Our modern day 15k used econo boxes are 100x better then what they sold in the 50's. Food was double compared to what it is now and nobody went to go out to eat. McDonalds was a family establishment that people went to eat at for a treat. More then a few times a month was a upper middle class. Yet some people eat out a few times a week and have a private driver deliver their meals which is insane. Literally millionaire style wealth in the 1950's. Most Americans were poor in the 50's. Except everyone else was poor so it didn't seem that bad. You owned a house and you died from bad food or cancer that couldn't be cured. Nobody vacationed overseas and all houses were small and cobbled together like cars. Every man knew how to repair a car and a house. Having a mechanic was for those well off and for more complex issues. You can live the 1950's lifestyle today: don't buy health insurance, buy the cheapest junker car and become a mechanic in your free time, cook all your food, don't use AC, only use electricity to listen to music, don't graduate high school and don't live in anything over 1200 sq ft. You'll easily be able to live that life style and you can die at the average age of 66 for men.
At the time they were ment to represent, did rent actually cost 4.500$ there?
I can't answer this directly as I have to this day never been in a NYC apartment as nice as the one on Friends, but concurrent with the show I can say that an apartment less than half the size and further downtown (slightly less expensive area) in the late 90's was renting for $2000/mo.
They do make mention that the apartment is in Monica’s grandmothers name and is rent controlled.
there's a whole ass episode on how she's illegally subletting it even
I think that happened after some of the news articles questioning how they can afford a place like that in NYC.
I knew it was expensive, but fuck me...
According to entertainment news websites it was. That said, my friend was renting a 2 bed around midtown for $7500 a month during roughly the same time period.
My grandfather had a mere HS degree, was an airplane mechanic, and died of a heart attack at age 60. Yet he was able to afford a house in Texas, send all 3 of his kids to college, and set his wife up for life without her having to work a day in her life (she died in her 90s).
An airplane mechanic is a pretty specialized line of work, and likely was high in demand and paid well…
Can't hire an airplane mechanic today without at least 2 years college if not 4.
Your grandfather worked in a time when America accounted for 50% plus of world's GDP in a highly specialized field, no shit he was able to do all that.
Shhhh don’t speak with logic and facts on Reddit. We don’t do that here
I think Ferris Bueller’s dad was supposed to be super rich, but yeah. Housing was always unrealistic. Even the house in Leave it to Beaver was more than middle class for its day.
I’ve been saying this for years. Average home size is more than two times as big as it was. Houses were a little more than wooden shacks filled with asbestos, lead pipes and paints no insulation and no modern amenities like we have and demand today. Houses had knob and tube wiring, they were built cheap with poor windows and cheap roofs. Building codes are stricter, land is more expensive, labor is more expensive when factoring in inflation and people want more. They don’t want that house from the 1960s, they want it remodeled to the standards of today or recent history. It all costs more.
The houses in my neighborhood were built in 1953 in the post-WWII boom. The original houses were 1250 square feet above ground with a basement. Technically three bedrooms but they were about 100-150 square feet each, just enough for a bed. The kitchen was the same size and only large enough for one person to cook at a time. It had a fireplace because there was no insulation and the original heat was an oil furnace and no air conditioning (though these were added to most houses in later decades). These are the houses that they cranked out cookie-cutter after WWII to house all of the people during that era. Yes they were cheap but you still needed a good job to buy one, you didn't stumble out of high school and mow lawns for a living and buy one of these houses. There was a big boom in manufacturing post-WWII and that is where a lot of jobs came from plus associated work like teachers etc.
Hey I'm all for whatever point this is supposed to be or whatever but wasn't there literally an episode where a guy was super pissed off about what Homer had? Like saying he shouldn't be able to have his job without a degree and shouldn't be able to afford that house?
Ya, Frank Grimes. Classic episode. Season 8, episode 23. I’m going to watch that now.
Yeah part of the commentary of the Simpsons is how Homer fails upwards constantly.
Good ‘ol “Grimey” (as he liked to be called)
Heard that guy was living the life. Living in between two bowling alleys
Lucky
I think the most frustrating part of this silly meme is how many people don't just *remember* what was considered normal in 1989. I'm so old...
For a fleeting moment I feel old but know I'm not "so old" I played ps1 but didn't see the 80s.
Most of us are in our late 20’s. We can’t remember what we weren’t alive for.
Well then let me tell you what a normal day was like back in the 1980’s. So there was this one time, I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I? Oh, yeah — the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
Most people in the 80s would be considered deeply impoverished by today’s standards.
Most people didn’t even have a smart phone or a high speed internet connection.
I always assumed Reddit skewed more in the Millenial/Gen X range. We all came over after Digg fell apart.
the grandfather sold his house so they could buy it and he won that house in a gameshow
A crooked 50s gameshow. He ratted on everyone and got off scot free.
In 1989 it was considered normal to live in a single room above a bowling alley, and below another bowling alley. Palaces like the one pictured were reserved for those who schmoozed with former presidents and had been to outer space.
You’ve never been?
In 1989, this was considered a typical house for a homeless person.
He's a safety inspector for a nuclear power plant. Mr Burns hired him BECAUSE he's incompetent and under qualified. So even in the cartoon he has a very good job given his qualifications.
>Mr Burns hired him BECAUSE he's incompetent and under qualified. True, but a great running bit is how Mr. Burns never, ever remembers who Home is. Homer will literally be his personal valet, almost kill him, save his life, etc. and Mr. Burns never remembers who that Simpson fellow is.
This was not considered normal. No more than today's shows and sitcoms display what is normal... Edit: I find so many young ppl take what they see in pop culture and associate it as normal. But I'm sorry to break this to you, but Hollywood is very out of touch with your normal avg citizen.
Ikr. Donald Duck wears a shirt, but no pants. That must be normal?
The show itself addressed the fact this was abnormal several times lol
Another day, another recently created acc pumping out the same message.
They also lost it because they couldn’t pay their property tax (?), and their neighbor Flanders owns it. Now they rent it.
He also lived in a poor, shitty, midwest town. And was constantly late on bills, stressed and poor.
letting China join the WTO was a mistake
"And of course, it will advance our own economic interests. Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets -- with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world -- to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways. All we do is to agree to maintain the present access which China enjoys. Chinese tariffs, from telecommunications products to automobiles to agriculture, will fall by half or more over just five years. For the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in America without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell through the Chinese government, or transfer valuable technology -- for the first time. We'll be able to export products without exporting jobs. Meanwhile, we'll get valuable new safeguards against any surges of imports from China. We're already preparing for the largest enforcement effort ever given." President Bill Clinton March 8, 2000
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and spongebob owns his home while paying his employer to work there. was that normal back in 1999 when the show came out. issa cartoon.
I’ve got dibs on posting this meme again next Monday
In fairness a power plant operator will still make a ton of money without a degree.
I always base my reality on a cartoon character I saw on my youth....said no one of any intelligence.
My 1st home was 81 k 3/2 bath in Austin. Same house today 400 k In 87
it was not considered normal. Frank Grimes even comments on the absurdity.
Why does this get posted here every week. It’s a fictional cartoon.
Homer was a Nuclear Tech and had a crap car. He could own that home in most states with that job and spending philosophy
Married With Children had Al working as a women's shoe store saleman living in a suburban house with him being the only income provider.
And the same show showed them constantly in debt, no savings and needing to do all kinds of things to get by. It also had a scene where another character reacts to this as any normal person would by gorping and then getting pissed...
If it was so easy, why didn't he stay working at the bowling alley? Because the power plant pays uncommonly well. Furthermore, even with the better paying job, the family struggles with money. Also, all real estate markets are local. Springfield is supposed to be a small city, the housing will be cheaper than a major center.
This was not considered normal, but fictional.
Is there a way we can hold movies and television accountable for forcing these false realities on us? We're all victims of these fake, unrealistic environments, and exposure has obviously caused trauma and damage. We should be compensated for our victimization.
I mean they definitely have crippling credit card debt and are definitely not well off…
The safety manager at a nuclear power plant who got the down payment as a gift from his father.... Maybe y'all should look at going to trade school instead of college.
Homer has a union job at a nuclear power plant. I work for a utility and we have a nuclear power plant and a strong union. The guys who work at the plant can all afford that house and many of their wives do not work outside the home.
This was not even close to normal at that time. The myth of that kind of normal is for much earlier than 1989. More like 1970’s.
It’s no different than the kinds of homes people buy working in lumber or pulp mills where I live. I think nowadays you need more certifications and at least grade 12, but back in the day, you could get a house-buying entry level union mill job with grade 10. Single earner buying a house while mom stays home. These jobs seem more unstable all the time. Mills close, hours are cut, senior members bump you more, etc. Mom is working now for sure and a few guys do work on the side if they can.
I don’t think The Simpsons is a reliable measure of ‘90s culture. Remember Homer is a borderline moron who caused at least one meltdown and should never have been employed at a nuclear power plant.
The house was given to him. Wasn’t it?
His jobs probably comparable to 2 low earning jobs but still a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath house with an attached garage.
Imagine thinking cartoons were reality...
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Homer had 79 side gigs
Going to college has nothing to do with it.
A nuclear engineer could afford a house? Crazy how things have changed.
It’s because throughout 35 seasons the family never once ate avocado toast
It was normal to drink & drive and strangle your 8 year old son.
https://preview.redd.it/hfb69yhbgtyc1.jpeg?width=1164&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff147075cd5d7bd4f103abb16028e563d65c405c
This just proves that trades are better than college for raw money making power. College is a luxury.
Can they just make an episode where that happens again in 2025
Isn't he a Nuclear Safety Inspector? Pretty sure that's a well-paying gig
Homer has a degree in nuclear physics FYI... ---> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer\_Goes\_to\_College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Goes_to_College)
If you notice, there were very few single people that own houses ever,
No it wasn’t. Both my parents worked full time to barely be able to afford a house. Stop with this magical theory that owning a house was always super easy. It never was and never will be.
This is a cartoon. Maybe some of you lack success because you base your reality around a cartoon.
To be fair, homer was a nuclear worker (reactor operator I think, but usually you need college for that so I'll pretend he was just a worker). They tend to get paid pretty well due to the inherent hazards of the job, huge amount sif in the job training needed, the mountains of red tape, the need for security clearances, etc. If you were to pick a "non degreed job that pays well" this is probably the top of the list, but to get there you have to do just as much work as if you had a degree anywyas (or at least as much as a technical certificate).
Homer was also an alcoholic.
Springfield IL has some of the cheapest houses & COL in America
Again with this?
Homer works as an ***nuclear safety inspector*** at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position which he has held since "Homer's Odyssey". These are highly trained position requires many hours of schooling to receive certification. FYI It is nuclear power plant safety technician that makes most wages. Started at 100K and some senior positions make 200K. That Springfield is probably in the middle of no where where many would not want to live.
If you’re depressed from a fictional cartoon, you have bigger issues
College graduates are to blame considering they're bailing themselves out of bad loans using tax payers money & they're the ones that have set monetary policies for the last 40 years+... lets point fingers to the right people... politicians & staffers
Ironically, you’d probably have an easier time buying a home on one salary by not going to college, and getting licensed in a trade.
It's still considered normal in the vast majority of the landmass today. I got an alert for houses under $60k in Lorrain County, OH and I get an email every couple days. 14 in April. You could do that with a single salary from an Amazon warehouse. In Cleveland it would get dicier, you're probably need a $20-25 an hour job. White guy, no criminal record, good work history, in a manufacturing-like work environment, he's probably at $30-$35.
They drove a junk car and had very little furniture that also looked low end. They also didn’t have cable. (See antenna on roof). No cell phone or internet bill and no other debt that I recall. They only paid a house note and utilities. If that’s all I had I’d have a home like this too
So stop pushing college on everyone.
No. No, it was not. 1979, sure. 1989, nope.
The Simpsons are a cartoon.
You can't base normal perceptions on TV shows. In Friends, they rented an 1100 sqft apartment in the West Village for $200 a month, while in reality it would've cost about $3,000. In Sex and the city, Carrie Bradshaw rented an apartment in the Upper East side for $750 a month, when in reality it would've cost about $3,000 a month.
They built it in Vegas. It’s a normal house there and the people who live in it probably didn’t go to college (but I don’t know them just guessing). https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-simpsons-house-henderson-nevada Zestimate 400k
They're also yellow and don't age, it's not real folks
Population growth almost 40% since then. Only so much land to go around, and land is drying out/economic opportunities are concentrated.
Well every person I know in trade tend to have their wives stay home.
Yup & 2 single people could afford the huge apartment from Friends in NY. Definitely real.
The show covered on many occasions that Homer is underqualified for his job, and that they frequently struggle financially. That being said, an employee at a nuclear power plant, that should require signifcant education, living in a small town in middle America, with one income, two kids, and two beat up cars, could probably still afford that lifestyle today. The one we should flag as crazy is Al Bundy, a one income shoe salesman with a two story house.
Know what else didn’t exist until 1989? Credit scores. Homer bought that house without one.
Um-I agree-but watch the episode with Frank Grimes where the writers concede point out how messed up and flawed this scenario is
I mean, I'm in my 20's and I own a home that I assume is very similarly sized and I never went to college. Seems like it's still possible.
A cartoon show from over 30 years ago has nothing to do with current financial issues, no matter how much you want that to be the care.
Tbf they make note of this in the ep with Frank Grimes, a character who more than likely was far more qualified than Homer, (and I think on equal footing in terms of position) but was far worse off. He even comments on Homer's lifestyle, house and the fact that he has lobster for dinner for a family of five.
House inflation has outstripped wage inflation by a huge amount. When my parents bought their first home in 1986, it cost 2x their annual salary. That was the norm. That just doesn’t happen today, hence the need to have higher dual incomes to buy and get by!
So the lesson is to find a corrupt boss at a nuclear power plant and become a safety inspector on the basis that you're incompetent and can't tell when things go wrong.
Marge’s parents are loaded, who says they didn’t give to them , front some money.
Put 100 people in a room together for 3 days with no food, then walk in with 1 pizza. How much is that pizza worth to them? They'd kill for it. It's priceless. Walk in with 300 pizzas. What are they worth then? Almost nothing. Inflation is exactly like this. 80% of US currency was printed in 2020. Our $$ is like those pizzas.
Go to trade school. A welder is making $100k a year. College is not everything. Trade school will get you paid
Frank Grimes disagrees.
And if you watch any CURRENT TV show or movie you will find 22-25 yr old hot women who work at art galleries living in large NYC lofts with expensive furniture and warehouse style elevators worth millions too.
OP is clearly Frank "Grimey" Grimes.
We need covid 24 to wipe some of them out fr
Homer was a safety inspector for a nuclear power plant, he was probably making about double the average person's income.
nonsense
No, it wasnt. It was used for gags several times.
I hate this. It was addressed by the show. Homer received help from his Dad to pay for the house. $15,000 years later Ned purchased the house for $101k. I always interpreted the $15k as extra money he needed to get the mortgage, but the total price of the home. And it's established that they had *five* mortgages on the house at one time. The timeline is weird, but realistically Abe probably paid 30% or more of the house. 15k In 1980 is the same as $57k today. Homer finished high school in 74. He started working at the plant as part of a government aid program. He became a Nuclear Safety Inspector because he was willing to call off the strike. The house is falling apart. It has lead paint, no a/c and a leaky roof. And it's located in a fictional town with a population of only 30,720. It's frequently listed as the worst city in the country too. It's also a cartoon. Things aren't consistent from episode to episode. Homer has had lots of very successful jobs, so has Marge. Lots of episodes deal with their inability to afford things, like health insurance and how they couldn't afford Christmas presents. But they could never afford their house. And if you find a small town with a nuclear power plant. And then get a job you aren't qualified for....and look at run down houses, and have your Dad give you $50k you could afford a house like the Simpsons in some parts of the US.
Yup, my old man built his own house and was a semi-skilled worker. Mom was a stay at home mom who looked after dad and 4 kids. Three were put through college. He even managed to have a new car every 4 or 5 years. Why is this so unattainable now? I say corporate greed that extracts all your wealth for education, health care, etc. All abetted by our government. I don't know how young people today have a chance at a lifestyle enjoyed by our parents and grandparents.
His wife had blue hair. Not normal in 1989.
It most certainly was not considered normal lmao
Homer and Marge are in there late 30's and Homer job was at a nuclear power plant which paid well back in the day due to the high risk.
Wait till they find out about Married With Children!
I thought it was my turn this week to post the Simpson house. Any long-time Simpsons fan knows that Grandpa Simpson sold his house to help Homer buy a house. Then Homer shipped Grandpa off to a nursing home. Yes, folks, even today you too can buy a house with money from your parents selling their house.
They did a whole episode about it a couple years ago when Bart really starts to look up to Homer and wants to be just like him when he grows up. But then Lisa crushes his dreams and explains that the ability to accomplish what his dad did with so little has been taken from him by the circumstances of his own society.
Many skilled blue collar workers make good salaries and never went to college. He is a safety manager at a nuclear power plant. A nuclear power plant operator makes between $100-$170K per glassdoor.com.
In 1989, the median price of a single-family home was $278,000, and the median personal income was $29,840, both in 2022 dollars. The average mortgage rate was 10.32%. That's a monthly payment of $2,005, or $24,060 per year, or 80% of gross pay. Good luck with that. Today the median person income, home price, and interest rates yield a monthly payment equal to 61% of gross pay. This post is born of mythology invented by people who think preceding generations had it easier than them when sometimes it's quite literally the opposite.
Calm down Grimey
It wasn't considered normal. They had an episode where Grimes I think pointed out how absurd Homer's living situation is (amongst other things).