A Big Mac today will set you back $3.99.
Go back 90 years and that amount would have allowed you to buy the lunch special for 16 consecutive days at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Stockton.
It was back in 1935 at the depth of the Great Depression.
The featured lunch was 25 cents. On one particular day that quarter purchased a cubed minute steak, panned gravy, sliced buttered beets, French fried potatoes, hot cloverleaf roll and butter.
According to Statista, the purchasing power of a $1 back in 1935 was equivalent to the purchasing power of roughly $18 today for most goods.
But in terms of that Woolworth lunch special that would mean you could dine like that for $4.50 today. That’s not likely given that is also what that Big Mac costs today once you add the 33 cents in sales tax that wasn’t collected back in 1935.
The quick trip back in time was prompted by a clipping from the December 2012 Manteca Historical Society newsletter that Jeannette Farley dropped by the Bulletin.
It was a reproduction of an editorial headlined “Manteca’s Payroll” that had appeared in Bulletin in the 1930s.
It started out as follows:
“’What Manteca needs is a payroll.’ ‘If Manteca only has some factories to give local people employment’.”
“We venture the assertion hat everyone who has lived here any length of time has heard either one or both of the forgoing statements some time or another.’
“Yet a survey made by the Manteca District Chamber of Commerce discloses the surprising fact Manteca has a payroll, and a very substantial one at that.”
“And as for industries, the town is not faring at all that badly. Manteca’s monthly payroll reaches the surprising figure of $60,420. Who would have ever believed it, had not the Chamber taken the trouble to find out. If the average Manteca resident had been asked what amount of money is being paid out in the form of wages here every month, it is not likely that anyone would have set that figure at above $20,000. Perhaps most guesses would have been less.”
“Just goes to show how little most of us really know about what is going on right at home.”
A little perspective.
Manteca had 1,700 residents in 1935 compared to 89,000 today
While there is no data for 1935, today’s average median household income in Manteca is $76,846. That’s just over $16,000 more than the monthly citywide payroll back in 1935.
The editorial goes on to report the list of top Manteca employers and their average monthly payroll.
*Spreckels Sugar, $11,000.
*Manteca Canning Co., $8,500.
*Teachers in the three schools were paid a total of $5,500 each month.
*PG&E, $2,600.
*Manteca Motors, $2,500.
*Dairyland. $2,300.
Manteca Warehouse, $1,750.
*Manteca Telephone Co., $1,200.
*Post Office, $1,200.
*And a number of others from $1,000 down to $100 or less.
The editorial also mentioned “the fact should not be overlooked that several of the larger oil companies have branch offices (stations) in this city, each of which has a payroll of around $800 amount.”
Keep in mind California minimum wage is now $15 an hour. That means a concern with a $100 payroll back in 1935 paid the equivalent in a month what one worker today earns in 6½ hours.
The editorial ends with, “see, even with the depression we in Manteca are not in such bad shape.”
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
