Homer Simpson: An economic analysis

Key Takeaways

in this 1995 episode of The Simpsons Homer walks with Marge through downtown Springfield and says Whoa careful now these are dangerous streets for us upper lower middle class types this is Homer's first real admission to being middle class for the rest of us this always seemed pretty obvious he lives in a modest home in the suburbs with his wife and three children he's not a college graduate and his job appears to require a minimal amount of Technical Training this is all confirmed when we get a very tight shot of his paycheck in season 7 hey how come my pay is so low according to the stub Homer's pre-tax weekly pay of $ 47960 works out to $1.99 an hour so he's looking at an annual salary of $4,395 adjusted for inflation that's $ 37,41 16 per year what this is an outrage there are a lot of fans who think the show is based on the real town of Springfield Oregon and if we look at Homer's salary there it places him pretty comfortably in the lower middle class income bracket of course this is all based on one job as a safety inspector at the Springfield nuclear power plant but Homer has had over 191 jobs in 27 seasons and they've placed him across the entire economic spectrum you know I've had a lot of jobs boxer mascot astronaut imitation crusty baby proofer trucker hippie plow driver food critic conceptual artist gree salesman Carney mayor grifter bodyguard for the mayor country western manager garbage commissioner mountain climber farmer inventor Smithers poochie celebrity assistant power plant worker fortune cookie Rider Beer Baron Quicky Mark clerk homophobe and missionary but protecting Springfield that gives me the best feeling of all some of these jobs were literally impossible to determine salaries for like beer Smuggler or the Grim Reaper there were also some seasonal jobs M Santa and those had to be excluded too in the end I narrowed Homer's resume down to 100 jobs and then I looked at the average salary for each one here's what we found three of Homer 10 highest paying jobs have been at the power plant in season 13 he tried his hand as the plants executive VP before momentarily taking over Mr Burn's post as CEO The Following Season Dad please you're the head of a major corporation you're right 3 years later he served as the facilities [Music] manager um uh around half of Homer's jobs Place him in the middle class and his least lucrative jobs were pretty odd he was a mascot a Carney a moonshine taste tester a cannonball performance artist and a walking billboard what are those doing there earning us 100 bucks a week that's what I plotted out Homer's hypothetical job salaries in a linear order by episode number and over the course of 597 episodes so from 1989 to 2016 it's clear that he hasn't really ascended economically despite a few successes here and there he has stagnated and that makes him just like the actual American middle class until the 1970s the income of the average American family grew just alongside the National Economic productivity since then wages have stagnated and have failed to keep up with inflation economists have referred to this as the middle class squeeze you see Homer's median income has actually never surpassed the median income in the United States despite briefer raising to the 1% Homer remains a paradigm of middle class America 3 decades later he's right where he [Music] started [Music] oh