Salary in the US: How much does Homer Simpson earn? The episode where Homer revealed his earnings...
We've been wondering: How much does Homer earn? A lot or a little? How much is that by US standards? Is he poor or rich? What's the average worker's salary in the US?
We often hear the phrase: "The Simpsons has done that before." The show has predicted the future many times. Moreover, despite its fantastical storyline, the show quite accurately reflects our real world. We know how much Homer earns, since the cartoon features a lot of work. We know what his job was. And how his career reflects the development of the US economy. Yes, The Simpsons accurately depicts how middle-class wages have changed.
In one episode in 1995, Homer is walking down the street and says, "Oh, this is a dangerous place for the upper middle class." I don't know about the streets, but in the second part, Homer is right. He really is middle class. Just not upper middle class, as he thought, but lower middle class.
Then, in another episode, we see his weekly paycheck. In America, it's common to report a salary annually, not monthly. And it's received once a week or two, rarely once a month. So that's what we see on his paycheck. Homer earns $9 an hour, $479 a month, or about $24,000 a year. Adjusted for inflation, that's almost $40,000 in 2020. This is the lowest middle-class salary in the US. In rubles, that's over 2.5 million rubles a year. And over 200,000 a month. Yes. In the US, the lower middle class earns such a large salary by Russian standards. Imagine your neighbor without a college degree, a skilled professional—for example, an ordinary fitter, an average worker—earning not 50,000 rubles (which is decent for a large Russian city), but 200,000. That's Homer's salary. There's a catch, though: this is the take-home pay. Then, throughout the year, Homer Simpson files a tax return and pays the state out of his own pocket.
Interestingly, The Simpsons depicts one of the key problems facing the middle class in the United States. Homer's earnings kept pace with per capita income, which was the case throughout the 1970s and into the late 1980s. But in the 1990s, his income grew much more slowly. The growth was adjusted for inflation. In other words, real incomes stagnated.
The Simpsons once again delivers on the truth and presents real facts. The stagnation of middle-class wage growth is a well-known economic phenomenon. It actually happened. And the show's creators accurately portrayed this fact, without making a big deal out of it.