TIME’s “Curious Capitalist” blog recently had an article about using median hourly wages to gauge the economic status of the US (as opposed to focusing on the rising minimum wage). The median hourly wage, for hourly workers, is $11.95 an hour.

This is made into a Big Deal because the poverty line is $21,200 for a family of four, and $11.95 works out to $23,900 a year. (The blogger states $24,856, but for some unknown reason isn’t aware that “full time” is considered to be 2,000 hours a year. Oh, well.) So some proportion of hourly wage-earners would be below the federal poverty line with family consisting of a husband, a wife, and two kids. The implication is that we should be shocked that so many single wage-earners “can’t” support a family alone because in a just society, everyone should be able to have the 1950s ideal of a wage-earning husband, a stay-at-home-wife, and two kids, if they should so chose.

The only problem is that this is complete bosh, from a historical and a modern perspective, both.

Wage data in particular includes many people who are dependents and/or work part time. Is is reasonable to get worked up about the fact that a 16-y-o part-time burger flipper wouldn’t be able to support a family if he worked full time? Or, from another point of view, is burger-flipping the kind of job that is fit for an adult who has the capacity to have a family? Or is it more reasonable to assume that a person who starts a family should have moved up the skill ladder from a low-skill starting position into a higher position?

Historically speaking, there have always been a large body of jobs that was not intended for independent adults. There are relatively few of these now–lowest-rung fast-food work, amusement park attendant work, babysitting, waiting tables (to a large extent), and the like. Historically, jobs began for kids much younger, there was a larger discrepancy between kid-pay and adult pay, and overall pay was lower, in real terms. Additionally, children were employed more regularly–either as assistants