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The above graphic depicts minimum wage adjusted for inflation (values are all given in 2017 dollars because the 2018 inflation rate isn't finalized yet). You'll notice each year a majority of states have the same minimum wage, which is the federal minimum wage. Periodic increases in minimum wage have been insufficient to keep pace with inflation, although there has been recent progress towards 1974 rates. As the federal minimum wage remained constant and inflation effectively caused a decrease in minimum wage from 1998 to 2007 and then from 2010 to present, states responded by setting their own higher minimum wages. While this is a victory for federalism, these changes are not nation-wide and tend to lag inflation.

If you were to have asked me five years ago if a $15 minimum wage was a possibility I would have given a firm no. From the early 1980s through 2015, no state was even clearing a $10 inflation adjusted minimum wage (ignoring a handful of very progressive years for the District of Columbia). However, beginning in 2016, states (California and Massachusetts followed by Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) have started clearing the $10 threshold. With the exception of city minimum wages, which can be significantly higher, a $15 minimum wage is a ways off, though it is more of a possibility now than it has been for the past 30 years. See below for still frames of particularly interesting years.

Our data set starts off towards the high end of the minimum wage spectrum with an inflation adjusted federal minimum wage of $10 (and $10.25 for Alaska).

2006 is the low point for minimum wage since 1974 with a federal inflation adjusted minimum wage of $6.49 and states largely failing to compensate.

With a federal minimum wage of $7.25 and a handful of states with minimum wages higher than even 1974 levels, 2017 looks a lot kinder to minimum wage earners than 2006. Though inflation adjusted federal minimum wage is still significantly behind 1974 levels, there is a very reassuring trend towards darker shades of blue that I for one find promising.

Data source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington Center for Equitable Growth, and the Labor Law Center

I was curious to see the correlations of franchise budgets and revenues over time so I threw together graphs for three of the big ones: Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. More detailed observations are below, but my overwhelming takeaway is that if you're a movie executive and someone suggests making a sequel for an already successful franchise, just say yes. Note that all dollar values are given in 2018 dollars.

Star Wars

There are a number of interesting things going on in this graph. First, you can see that A New Hope did just spectacularly well and had results that were not replicable in any sequel. Second, notice that each time the series was brought back, the first reboot did better than those immediately following -- Episode I did better than II and III and Episode VII did better than Rogue one and VIII. Also note that initial reboots (Episode I and VII) each had higher budgets than those immediately following ($173 million and $324 million respectively).

Harry Potter

What jumps out to me in this graph is the fact that the budget for Half-blood Prince so much higher than that of the rest of the movies in the Harry Potter franchise. Equally interesting is the fact that the budget for each of the two Deathly Hollows is exactly half that of the Half-blood Prince. Apparently the movie executives assigned the same budget to the final two books in the series and then decided to split the final film into two parts to eek it out a little longer. Like the suckers that we are, we all went to see Deathly Hollows, making it the most profitable and the highest grossing of all of the Harry Potter movies when really--if movie quality is correlated with budget--we should have all been lining up to see Half-blood Prince.

The Lord of the Rings (and the Hobbit)

Unlike Star Wars that started out with a bang and then just did super well after that, The Lord of the Rings just gained momentum (that is, until we get to the Hobbit series). What's really interesting here is the budget Peter Jackson was able to demand for the Hobbit. There is no reason why he needed a budget almost double that of each of the Lord of the Rings movies, but the LOTR movies each made such a phenomenal return on investment (~8-12X returns) that Peter Jackson could have asked for whatever he wanted. And the movie executives have no reason to complain--the Hobbit movies still saw returns of about 4X.

Data source: the-numbers.com

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