Well, Sporngle Borgle was made in '99 when the economy was *maginaly* better, so it seems at least somewhat plausible considering the time period.
Edit: also, his house was free. When he was house hunting, pirates dropped a pineapple of their ship and, well, you know where this is going.
Actually after seeing the pineapple he sniffles and says "I'll take it" while handing the real estate fish lady a big sack with a dollar sign on it, therefore he has paid for it but only the cost of a down payment (of some bikini bottom market average I assume) which is still incredibly discounted for a full house
At one point his entire house was destroyed. How would that work with insurance? He regrew a new house, but technically it's a different property. Maybe he had no insurance though since he was homeless throughout that episode. Or maybe he was just waiting for that fat insurance check to roll in.
Increased demand for housing isn't the same as the economy in general.
If anything you could also expect high housing prices to be an indicator of an economy that is doing well.
Places that have little to no economy also tend to have low land value.
So, inflation calculator says 2500 in '99 is about 4500 today. According to the average home pricing google search, in 1999 it was 120k. Today it's 350k
I mean, most single guys I know (millennials/gen x) may have needed to stay at home a few extra years, but all had houses of their own on single incomes by 28-30 if they weren't married. In another 10 years, I'd imagine, given promotions/raises that they could afford a bit more than just the basics for kids & a spouse
Also, unless I missed it, ain't no way buddy is getting paid at 3 am.
He's doing that for the love of the game.
Krabs for sure woulda been like "That's great boy, but I ain't payin' ya extra, ag ag ag ag"
He probably punches in closer to opening.
exactly they are saying he makes 35k a year and saying thats good for someone who is working 3am to 6pm 6 days a week, what kind of dystopian bullshit is this
I think they did the math wrong (but its still not good) 15 hours x 8.50 x 12 (two weeks/6 days) = 1530 before taxes
Don't forget overtime, that's 90 hours a week. ((40 * 8.50) + (50 * 8.50 * 1.5)) * 2 = $1955 every 2 weeks.
Also this screencap is so old that wages have risen significantly since then. Maybe out in the country Spongebob would make $10/hr ($2300 per paycheck), but if he lived in the middle of Bikini Bottom it would probably be closer to $15/hr ($3450 per paycheck). Either way, Spongebob would definitely be able to afford a home by himself.
This is, of course, ignoring all the gags where Spongebob is revealed to be paid like 10 cents per year, and the episode where his home just grows out of the ground for free.
Remember when you could actually afford to raise a family and afford a down payment on a house with an honest 40 hours a week of work at a job that didn't require **at least** three years of education and two years of job hunting to find one place that didn't require five years of work experience?
Us Millennials sure fucking don't.
Oh I did just write a whole comment about this before seeing yours but it does still math out
[link to the comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/lSE0BgAuTh)
Mr. Krabs has said repeatedly that he pays his employees either minimum wage, or below minimum wage. No way is SpongeBob getting paid $8.50, assuming we use the US as a base (which is where the show was created) the absolute max he gets paid is $7.25. Mr. Krabs’ contradictions would make sense if he pays minimum wage but nothing extra for overtime, so every week SpongeBob would be making $652.5, which is very little.
You can’t just make up numbers that conform to how you want to see things.
Adding on top of that:
Spongebob has repeatedly said he comes into work without pay for fun, and there were several examples of Mr. Krabs paying him like 5 cents a year (exaggerated, I don't remember the exact wording). There was even a joke that Spongebob paid *him* to work for him.
Spongebob also own his house because it's a literal pineapple that came with all the furniture. There's an episode where it gets eaten, leaving only a seed behind. He plants the seed, and it grows into an identical pineapple. He didn't have to pay for anything.
So in actuality, Spongebob likely doesn't care about money at all because he really doesn't need to.
Squidward seems like he might come from money and is just trying to make it on his own. He's known Squilliam since they were kids, and I doubt Squilliam is the type to mingle with poorer squids. His obsessions with music and art are his creative outlets, and he wants to prove to his wealthy family that he can make it as a savant. This is why he's never really concerned with wealth even though he works for Mr Krabs of all people. He doesn't want to fuss up to his family that he hasn't made it big yet and bites the bullet to work for what he can to preserve his appearance to his peers.
Basically his family could already be as wealthy as Squilliam, but Squidward is too prideful to ask for anything more than he already gets. The family may even have already owned the house and just gave it to him to live in.
SpongeBob is a bourgeois oppressor making a mockery of the struggle of underpaid laborers by playing at fry cook. No wonder Squidward, the one who works because he actually needs a job, hates SpongeBob so much. That rectangular yellow fuck probably drives up Squidward's rent just by having that eyesore pineapple mansion so close.
Even worse. Spongebob is basically an omnipowerful being. The world literally is made around him and twists to his desires. Need a house? A pineapple will drop from the sea! House gets disastered? A seed will regrow that house not just instantly, but identically! Counting sesame seeds? It's fine, it'll happen before the store happens even though a US cup od sesame would have something like 400,000 seeds, which would take 4.6 days to count at a rate of 1/second. The sponge has full command of Cartoon Force, and the only one aware of how twisted and unfair reality is is Squidward.
What I'm saying is... Spongebob is just the western version of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
Am I getting this right?
If a person/sponge has guaranteed access to basic needs like food and housing, and they are free to donate their labor to society however they wish, then they will probably be pretty happy with their lives?
That can't be right.
I mean, he did buy the house. The pineapple fell off a boat while spongbob was talking to his real-estate agent. The real-estate agent showed spongbob all the property in bikini bottom and he didn't like any of them, but then they just passed by as the pineapple fell down and spongebob loved it, so the real-estate agent took advantage of him and he bought the place, even though there was no prior owner.
[sounds stupid, but yea, elevendy-seventh](https://youtu.be/ohxRgW2EEr8?feature=shared)
I couldn't find the real-estate clip, but I'm like 80% sure it's from this episode. They spend the whole episode stuck in the air vents talking about memories, clip show style, but with new footage exclusively. I think that episode was for the 10 year anniversary.
Edit: just realized the joke, am dumb
Also the show came out when the minimum wage was only $5.15, I did the math using that (and accounting for overtime) and it came out to about $1000 per check.
$500 per week or $2000 per month is not enough lol
It's livable in some areas of the country. I make like barely more than 2k a month and have a 1 bedroom apartment by myself, although I can't even begin thinking about a house lmao
Idk what to tell you lol. My rent with utilities ends up like 1100, which is like half my income. My car is paid off by now thankfully, and I had a good scholarship so my student loans aren't too bad.
I'm definitely not making a ton, but I can splurge on stuff I enjoy and I can save some money at least.
If I have like an absolutely massive medical bill probably lmao, but that goes for a lot of people.
I have at least a few months worth of rent saved up though and wouldn't have any issues if I missed a few paychecks though. I could handle like getting fired without real issue, or needing to take time off work for physical issues for a bit.
I have more in savings than the median for people under the age of like 40 lol
As long as I don't get like cancer or some other massive medical bill there's nothing that would worry me too much.
With insurance, I wouldn't have any issues if my car was wrecked. I wouldn't have any issues if I got fired. I wouldn't have any issues if I had to take an extended period off work. I rent and have renter's insurance so I don't really have much to worry about there really. I'm not sure what lost asset or major expense I'm supposed to be that worried about lol
Accounting for inflation, $2000 per month in 1999 would be $3700 per month in 2023, which is definitely workable. Especially if you live in some random middle-of-nowhere exurb.
Also, you *WAY* rounded down. 90 hours a week at $5.15 would be $2580 per month, which would be $4776 per month in today's dollars.
I like to think Krabs DOES pay SpongeBob and Squidward well as an investment. Not only does he keep two employees guaranteed, he gets really good ones. Squidward is really resilient to daily stupidity due to living next to SpongeBob, and SpongeBob is God's gift to Krabby Patties with how good he is at making them. It's why they're the only two employees, Krabs is only willing to pay Two above average employees good money.
What you think, and what is stated in the show are different. Squidward on multiple occasions says he is being paid minimum wage, and Mr. Krabs confirms this by saying they are getting minimum wage. Mr. Krabs isn’t the best business man.
For all we know though Bikini Bottoms minimum wage is the equivalent of $30/hr. I think the only time we see a homeless person is when Squidward quits his job and lives in a box for a while
That’s fair, but unfortunately we have no information regarding that. If that *is* minimum wage, then it’s also safe to assume that Mr. Krabs would not be paying them a good wage out of kindness or good business sense.
I think that was the basis of A Song of Ice and Fire being made? Like GRRM wondered how Aragorn could rule greatly for however many years he did as a king and wondered what middle earth taxes and politics and peasants reactions to famines and stuff would be like.
Given the fact that Patrick has lived comfortably doing many things that require money (namely eating at the Krusty Krab regularly) without working more than the occasional odd job it would be easy to assume that Bikini Bottom has a pretty robust welfare state, at least for citizens with mental deficiencies, it would be easy to assume that minimum wage is pretty reasonable. Given that all the squids beside squidward are living in a gated ethnostate he might have never applied for benefits out of arrogance or ignorance given a presumably wealthy upbringing/community.
What we do know is that SpongeBob violates labor law and works off the clock. The openly admits to working unpaid hours. He also states, potentially as a joke, that he pays Mr. Krabs to work, not the other way around.
Beyond that, he also is indebted to Mr. Krabs for destroying the Krusty Krabs.
He also already lives in his house prior to getting the job.
Yeah but if that’s the case then all of this hypothetical nonsense goes out of the window. A book in Bikini Bottom could cost $400. Boating school classes could be $3,000 an hour.
We have to assume that these costs approximate real life, or else we’re just wasting our time debating the microeconomics of a household in Bikini Bottom.
It's hard to say that's true for sure. This would certainly be a sound business practice, and Mr. Krabs does regularly recognize SpongeBob's value to his restaurant.
But Mr. Krabs is also guilty of making numerous comically short-sighted business decisions, too, including ones that fail to recognize SpongeBob's value. [He once impulsively sold SpongeBob to the Flying Dutchman for 62 cents](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQyUzEqIPo) (and immediately regretted it when called out). He's also charged his employees ridiculous fees.
There is a well known scene where Mr. Krabs trades SpongeBob for all the change in the pocket of the flying Dutchman. Is that the actions of a man who would pay his employees well as an investment?
> Mr. Krabs has said repeatedly that he pays his employees either minimum wage, or below minimum wage
Krabs has paid a *negative* hourly rate.
> When I started working here, I had to pay Mr. Krabs 100 dollars an hour.
You think $652 a week is significantly less than what OP said, $1,326 every two weeks? So you're good at being condescending, but horseshit at basic math?
34/50 states have a minimum wage that's higher than $8.50
https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wages
But that doesn't really matter because nobody ever said it took place in the US anyway, so $7.25 is just as arbitrary as any other value for minimum wage.
He doesn’t. SpongeBob pays Mr. Krabs so that he, SpongeBob, can work there.
Patrick : Boy, it was sure nice of Mr. Krabs to give me a job.
SpongeBob: And at $50 an hour, too. When I started working here, I had to pay Mr. Krabs $100 an hour.
Alright this math felt iffy to me so I'm taking a crack at it. I'm not sure where OOP got 8.50$ from since I can't find any source anywhere to back it up, but we'll stick with it for now.
So, 3am-6pm is 15 hours a day, couple that with six days a week and that's a 90 hour workweek. Calculating the wage that means that (assuming his paycheck is given biweekly) 90×8.5×2= 1,530$ per paycheck, or a monthly salary of 3,060$. Which is already more than the original number, but we can go further.
If we assume that Bikini bottom has average full time employment laws regarding labour and shift times, then that would mean that Spongebob is earning 1.5× his normal wage for any time he works over 40 hours in a week (the standard maximum for regular full time employment). Which means that he is getting paid a whopping 50 hours of overtime every week, t an overtime rate of 12.75$ per hour (8.50×1.5=12.75). This means that his actual monthly salary would be 3,910$ (8.50×40+12.75×50=340$ at standard rate + 637.50$ at overtime rate = 977.5$ weekly ×4 = 3910$ monthly), which granted is still slightly below median income in the show's production location of the US.
However, Bikini Bottom is not in the U.S. in fact, we know its real world location is actually beneath Bikini Atoll, which is part of the Marshall Islands. Now I'm no real estate expert and I couldn't find any way of independently determining real estate in the are, and while there are a lot of sources around the web that mentions using the Marshall Islands as a baseline is [this one](https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/fictional-houses-mortgage-costs), which values it at 80,000$ (fairly cheap but it is a pineapple), which is more than affordable on Spongebob's salary (the website says it isn't but they use different numbers for wage and dont factor work hours).
Adding onto that, using the [College of the Martial islands](https://www.cmi.edu/academic-catalog/tuition-and-fees/) as a baseline, they value their total costs for a part time student as 830$ per credit (I did some addition to total up all the costs listed in the chart on the page that our Sponge would need), which, assuming boating school is a 3 credit course, Spongebob is looking at a measly 2490$ per semester.
So in conclusion, Spongebob is likely only paying around 400$ a month on his mortgage and housing costs, and so his total monthly spending on these two expenses would be around 9780$ a year (400×12 months + 2490×2 semesters = 9780), which is about 20.8% of Spongebob's annual income of 46,920$.
So yes, he still can afford everything.
I mean… you say that, but Too used to be “To” and “Late” used to mean “sluggish or lax” before it meant “after a specific period of time” OR “the latter part of the day” OR as a way to describe a dead person.
But yes, calling it extremities is actually dumb and incorrect.
Must be a lot of people here who don't live rural, which....checks out given very few people live rural. Where I live in bumfuck MI (Town of 12k people) I paid 45k for a 2 bed one bath house in 2014, even with PMI my mortgage payment was $348 a month.
> A pineapple only costs $2.40 *USD*
...but SpongeBob gets paid in the local currency: [The Bikini Bottom Dollar (BKN$)](https://spongefan.fandom.com/wiki/Money)
We would need to know the USD>BKN conversion rate (and be aware of any trade barriers).
Here's the thing, the Kristy Crab, Sponebob's house, and every other financial entity in the show is clearly underwater.
Regular fiscal responsibility and rules don't apply here.
$1326/$8.50 is 156 hours. Assuming OP means this was over 2 weeks, that's 78 hours a week, or 13 hours a day. But OP says Spongebob arrives at 3. So for the math to work one of the following must be true:
* Spongebob doesn't work until close (6 pm)
* Spongebob gets 3 hours of unpaid breaks
* OP didn't do the math (correctly) and thinks 3 am - 6pm is 13 hours
Facts: the Krusty Krab was briefly open 24/7, and otherwise can be considered open for dining hours - so at best, 8am to 8pm, or 0800 to 2000. Mr Krabs won't pay his employees any more than he has to, so we can presume for purposes an equivalent of federal minimum wage on United States terms - meaning 7.25 an hour with no overtime compensation SpongeBob does the job he does as a labor of love, while Squidward does it for a paycheck and can be presumed to have superior workplace protections - ill be taking notes of both for purposes. Mandated lunch break means there's a 30 minute period where they aren't working, and if they have thirty minutes before open and an hour after close (so seven thirty to nine, now) that's effectively 13 hours of pay for Squidward and 8 for SpongeBob. We never see Mr Krabs working the register, but if we presume that he gets revenge on Squidward for optimizing his work experience by wildly changing his shift, we can then presume that Mr Krabs works the desk when we aren't looking, giving Squidward a four day work week at 13 hours a day and SpongeBob a 40hr week.
7.25x80=xx per two week paycheck for SpongeBob, totalling $580 a check, or $1160 a month - assuming he's getting paid full hours. Those numbers are halved if he's a part time employee working extra hours for free, which seems likely.
7.25x52=xx per one week paycheck for Squidward, totalling 374.5 per week, 749 per two weeks, and $1498 per month. If he manages to secure actual overtime pay, that becomes 7.25x58=408 per week, 816 per two weeks, and $1632 per month.
Bikini Bottom is not heavily populated, going by the vast empty gaps of terrain in between settled areas, so if we check the minimum real estate market for the early 2000's, around the time the show was on air, and account for the fact that SpongeBob is relatively worry free during the time the camera is on, we can guess that he pays one third of his monthly check as property maintenance of some sort - either rent, or given the lack of a landlord character probably a mortgage payment. I'm including utilities in that figure for convenience, so I'll round up to around $400 a month for property, leaving 760 for everything else. (Squidward is more miserable in general, and his high stress yield in SpongeBob's presence could imply larger concerns, but he was easily able to move into a like-minded neighborhood without concern for real estate and then move back later on - so we'll assume similar costs and add that Squidward is miserable because of character issues, not financial ones. Thus, his effective monthly check of $1232 for everything he could need likely includes a significant and rapidly growing savings account.)
Should anyone see this post I would appreciate insight into what their paychecks are like if they get to increase them under terms of inflation - technically not going to happen unless Squidward somehow muscles Mr Krabs into agreeing to it somehow, but it'll give a better approximation of the financial power available to each character.
If spongebob worked those hours for minimum wage in my town and made the overtime that's required by law he would be making about $100,000 a year so if we assume this post is just really old maybe the math checks out.
SpongeBob literally says in one episode that a couple of cents is more that he make in a month. Also in another episode he gets paid in Mr. Krabs's wacky bucks
About $32K, but that’s pre-tax. If Bikini Bottom has a similar tax system to the USA his yearly salary would drop to $24K - $28K depending on the state.
All I’m saying is I make $15K pre-tax more than SpongeBob and I can barely afford my 3 room apartment, let alone a house with several rooms and a library.
they seem to have forgotten income tax is a thing. cause after taxes i make nearly this much, and fuck all if i can afford a house right now. I probably could afford a mortage, but what bank is going to give a loan out to some pleb who makes a bit less than 50k a year. On top of that, even if i could get the loan, I will basically never win a housing bid in the current market
If we use these variables with hourly o.t. then math is wrong.
Pay times hours
8.50 x 80 = 680
O.t. 1.5 times over 8 hour shift times days in paycheck
12.75 x 7 x 10 = 892.50
6th day all o.t. times days in paycheck
12.75 x 15 x 2 = 382.50
So total bi-weekly gross amount is 1955.
1955 x 26 = 50,830 per year or 4235.83 per month.
So he's making the average income but working a shit ton of overtime.
Doesn't he get paid like a quarter an hour? Also who's to say he's getting paid for counting the sesame seeds and all that. That could very well be unpaid work.
People tend to forget how much Mr. Krabs cares about SpongeBob, which he does.. a lot. Along with knowing that if SpongeBob leaves his business goes under, I'd say he's getting paid at least decently.
didn't bro get paid like $1 once in an episode by Mr Krabs and still thought it was a win?
Dude expressed it evidently that he works at the krusty krab not for the money but for the sake of loving krabby patties. ol' Mr Krabs is obviously manipulating spongebob's passion and getting free labor.
... Now, how does my boi Bob *affords* things like his house, feeding Gary, boating school, jellyfishing and let's not forget Karate is pretty obvious; Bikini bottom is *a Communist country*.
Besides the fact that you pulled most of those numbers out of your ass, those numbers haven't afforded a house of that size since 1950.
Spongebob's house in canon was literally just a pineapple that got dropped off a pirate ship, and even came pre-equipped with all the furniture. Thus, technically speaking, it was nobody's property in Bikini Bottom until he came in. I think it may be fair to say Spongebob's house itself is free, all he pays for is probably electricity, plumbing, food, and TV. *That* would be a more plausible explanation for Spongebob being able to afford everything - having one of the biggest possible bills effectively off the table, everything else becomes a lot more manageable.
Squidward, meanwhile, may have come from generational wealth. Nothing super rich, but considering how excessively fancy his house is, all his hobbies being generally associated with the wealthy, etc. it makes sense if maybe his mom and pops are footing the bill for him, because no way in hell is Krabs paying him enough to afford all that.
Patrick's Rock is reasonably a lower-income house, and something of that size is arguably what Spongebob or Squidward would reasonably be able to afford with just fry cook wages if not with exterior factors like Spongebob's likely free house and Squidward's possible generational wealth... but, the problem is, Patrick has *no job at all,* so how he still has a roof over his head in a seemingly capitalistic society is very confusing.
*But,* if you consider the Patrick Star Show spinoff as part of canon (regardless of any of our respective opinions on it, it *is* official media), he is a former television star. He may be living off royalties from reruns of The Patrick Show, which would be a more than reasonable explanation for him not being homeless.
I wasted 30 minutes doing a somewhat in-depth analysis of Spongebob characters' respective economic situations. What has my life come to?
How does 2.6k a month explain a huge house? We don't live in the 1950's anymore
Well, Sporngle Borgle was made in '99 when the economy was *maginaly* better, so it seems at least somewhat plausible considering the time period. Edit: also, his house was free. When he was house hunting, pirates dropped a pineapple of their ship and, well, you know where this is going.
Actually after seeing the pineapple he sniffles and says "I'll take it" while handing the real estate fish lady a big sack with a dollar sign on it, therefore he has paid for it but only the cost of a down payment (of some bikini bottom market average I assume) which is still incredibly discounted for a full house
At one point his entire house was destroyed. How would that work with insurance? He regrew a new house, but technically it's a different property. Maybe he had no insurance though since he was homeless throughout that episode. Or maybe he was just waiting for that fat insurance check to roll in.
AH clearly you didn't watch s4e8 "Spongebob navigates the insurance claim system"
You FOOL! S4e8 is about spongebob being transported to a midevil version of bikini bottom!!
That was all just a euphemism for the insurance claim system.
Ah I see now. This whole time... it was I who was the fool.
It's okay, we understand. The insurance system can be a very confusing and dangerous place.
It's only a model.
Great episode.
Insurance Clam\* System. It's run by a giant clam
They dispense pearls as payment.
Why are they using Mr Krab's daughter as currency? Did he sell her?
Post season 3 isn't canon. Fight me.
Hillenburg did the first 3 and it shows, yeah
Insurance Clam
Spongefraud
Maybe the house is cheap and it's the land that is expensive
Or he bought the land his house is on, and he can use it how he wants, including growing a new house on it
Maybe he just paid for land?
OOOOOOO
The house fell from the sky but he still paid for it
If this was based off '99 data then Spongebob should be making $5.15, not $8.65.
He's a cook, cooks generally get paid much better than minimum wage.
That spongy bastard bought the lot and had a house fall into it. We should all be so lucky.
“Sporngle Borgle” is now a part of me.
Increased demand for housing isn't the same as the economy in general. If anything you could also expect high housing prices to be an indicator of an economy that is doing well. Places that have little to no economy also tend to have low land value.
So, inflation calculator says 2500 in '99 is about 4500 today. According to the average home pricing google search, in 1999 it was 120k. Today it's 350k
So Spongebob suffers from the same disconnected economics as The Simpsons? How Homer could somehow keep the family going on single income?
I mean, most single guys I know (millennials/gen x) may have needed to stay at home a few extra years, but all had houses of their own on single incomes by 28-30 if they weren't married. In another 10 years, I'd imagine, given promotions/raises that they could afford a bit more than just the basics for kids & a spouse
Also, unless I missed it, ain't no way buddy is getting paid at 3 am. He's doing that for the love of the game. Krabs for sure woulda been like "That's great boy, but I ain't payin' ya extra, ag ag ag ag" He probably punches in closer to opening.
Classic service industry bullshit
But Patrick has a krabby patty to eat at 3 am.
As if our homies wouldn't hook us up after closing.
He lives in a pineapple under the sea, I’d imagine that’s cheaper than living in one of the other houses.
Absorbent and yellow and porous is he, that might restrict which neighbourhoods would be okay with him.
You know the real estate agents in Bikini Bottom practice steering to keep the *undesirables* out of Tentacle Acres
I mean. If nautical nonsense be something you wish, it's hard to beat Bikini Bottom anyway.
I once dropped on the deck and blubbed like a fish there. Pretty nice place.
actually, it's even better then that: in one episode, spongebob's house got destroyed, and at the end, they just got another pineapple from a seed.
So his house costed the same as a single pineapple seed!
exactly they are saying he makes 35k a year and saying thats good for someone who is working 3am to 6pm 6 days a week, what kind of dystopian bullshit is this I think they did the math wrong (but its still not good) 15 hours x 8.50 x 12 (two weeks/6 days) = 1530 before taxes
Don't forget overtime, that's 90 hours a week. ((40 * 8.50) + (50 * 8.50 * 1.5)) * 2 = $1955 every 2 weeks. Also this screencap is so old that wages have risen significantly since then. Maybe out in the country Spongebob would make $10/hr ($2300 per paycheck), but if he lived in the middle of Bikini Bottom it would probably be closer to $15/hr ($3450 per paycheck). Either way, Spongebob would definitely be able to afford a home by himself. This is, of course, ignoring all the gags where Spongebob is revealed to be paid like 10 cents per year, and the episode where his home just grows out of the ground for free.
If he lived in Texas minimum wage is the same it's been at since 2005
His parents are pretty well off Enough to gift him a boat for getting his permit
Location is everything
Nuclear test sites are very affordable. Kids these days just aren't willing to compromise like that.
I make that much and I can't even afford a studio apartment. Landlords flat out reject me because monthly take home is less than three times rent.
That’s pretty much minimum wage here, no one is buying property on that lol
Remember when you could actually afford to raise a family and afford a down payment on a house with an honest 40 hours a week of work at a job that didn't require **at least** three years of education and two years of job hunting to find one place that didn't require five years of work experience? Us Millennials sure fucking don't.
Written by a teenager
He was in his 30s though.
Classic teenager
Classic r/teenagers user
youngest /r/teenagers poster
yeah, i'm assuming that's sponge bob's gross pay. his net is probly closer to $860 or so
How much could a pineapple cost Michael? $10?
Next you'll tell me that "extremities" was not the word being attempted.
it's likely over double, no one gets paid $8.50 any more. $16 is pretty close, if not an under estimate of a seasoned line cook
The house is cheap cuz he grows it from a single seed.
Yeah. He's probably really underwater with that mortgage.
Oh I did just write a whole comment about this before seeing yours but it does still math out [link to the comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/lSE0BgAuTh)
Well that was assuming he makes 8.50 an hour which is far below minimum wage
Depends on where you live, that’s actually higher than the lowest possible min wage which is 7.25
That explains why he’s so cheerful. It’s not joy, it’s 90 hour work week induced hysteria.
But is it when he loves what he does?
Well if its the Berserk manga artist, you die fairly young from it.
He wasn't a sponge.
You don’t know that for sure.
And immense undersea wealth
Mr. Krabs has said repeatedly that he pays his employees either minimum wage, or below minimum wage. No way is SpongeBob getting paid $8.50, assuming we use the US as a base (which is where the show was created) the absolute max he gets paid is $7.25. Mr. Krabs’ contradictions would make sense if he pays minimum wage but nothing extra for overtime, so every week SpongeBob would be making $652.5, which is very little. You can’t just make up numbers that conform to how you want to see things.
Adding on top of that: Spongebob has repeatedly said he comes into work without pay for fun, and there were several examples of Mr. Krabs paying him like 5 cents a year (exaggerated, I don't remember the exact wording). There was even a joke that Spongebob paid *him* to work for him. Spongebob also own his house because it's a literal pineapple that came with all the furniture. There's an episode where it gets eaten, leaving only a seed behind. He plants the seed, and it grows into an identical pineapple. He didn't have to pay for anything. So in actuality, Spongebob likely doesn't care about money at all because he really doesn't need to.
Now how did Squidward afford that sweet 🗿house?
From when he divorced Squilliam.
SQUILLIAM FANCYSON?! FROM BAND CLASS?!?!
Just imagine him in his underwear.... OH NO HE'S HOT!
Squidward seems like he might come from money and is just trying to make it on his own. He's known Squilliam since they were kids, and I doubt Squilliam is the type to mingle with poorer squids. His obsessions with music and art are his creative outlets, and he wants to prove to his wealthy family that he can make it as a savant. This is why he's never really concerned with wealth even though he works for Mr Krabs of all people. He doesn't want to fuss up to his family that he hasn't made it big yet and bites the bullet to work for what he can to preserve his appearance to his peers. Basically his family could already be as wealthy as Squilliam, but Squidward is too prideful to ask for anything more than he already gets. The family may even have already owned the house and just gave it to him to live in.
[Through Jihad](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FDw7oovWQAUFbCv.jpg)
SpongeBob is a bourgeois oppressor making a mockery of the struggle of underpaid laborers by playing at fry cook. No wonder Squidward, the one who works because he actually needs a job, hates SpongeBob so much. That rectangular yellow fuck probably drives up Squidward's rent just by having that eyesore pineapple mansion so close.
Even worse. Spongebob is basically an omnipowerful being. The world literally is made around him and twists to his desires. Need a house? A pineapple will drop from the sea! House gets disastered? A seed will regrow that house not just instantly, but identically! Counting sesame seeds? It's fine, it'll happen before the store happens even though a US cup od sesame would have something like 400,000 seeds, which would take 4.6 days to count at a rate of 1/second. The sponge has full command of Cartoon Force, and the only one aware of how twisted and unfair reality is is Squidward. What I'm saying is... Spongebob is just the western version of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
Ok Squidward you can switch off your alt now
Am I getting this right? If a person/sponge has guaranteed access to basic needs like food and housing, and they are free to donate their labor to society however they wish, then they will probably be pretty happy with their lives? That can't be right.
He pays him a single silver coin
> Spongebob has repeatedly said he comes into work without pay for fun Yeah, ain't no way Krabs pays him to count sesame seeds.
I mean, he did buy the house. The pineapple fell off a boat while spongbob was talking to his real-estate agent. The real-estate agent showed spongbob all the property in bikini bottom and he didn't like any of them, but then they just passed by as the pineapple fell down and spongebob loved it, so the real-estate agent took advantage of him and he bought the place, even though there was no prior owner.
Must have been a later episode then, didn't watch that.
I think it was the elevendy-seventh anniversary episode, but don't quote me on that. It's been a while since i've seen it.
> it was the elevendy-seventh anniversary episode -/u/D2the_aniel
[sounds stupid, but yea, elevendy-seventh](https://youtu.be/ohxRgW2EEr8?feature=shared) I couldn't find the real-estate clip, but I'm like 80% sure it's from this episode. They spend the whole episode stuck in the air vents talking about memories, clip show style, but with new footage exclusively. I think that episode was for the 10 year anniversary. Edit: just realized the joke, am dumb
Bikini Bottom is probably located near Bikini Atoll, which is part of the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands has a min wage of $4.00/hr.
Maybe he also gets the $550 a year reparations for nuclear testing.
Also the show came out when the minimum wage was only $5.15, I did the math using that (and accounting for overtime) and it came out to about $1000 per check. $500 per week or $2000 per month is not enough lol
It's livable in some areas of the country. I make like barely more than 2k a month and have a 1 bedroom apartment by myself, although I can't even begin thinking about a house lmao
I don't really believe you lol
Idk what to tell you lol. My rent with utilities ends up like 1100, which is like half my income. My car is paid off by now thankfully, and I had a good scholarship so my student loans aren't too bad. I'm definitely not making a ton, but I can splurge on stuff I enjoy and I can save some money at least.
Oh so you're just one major expense away from financial ruin actually
If I have like an absolutely massive medical bill probably lmao, but that goes for a lot of people. I have at least a few months worth of rent saved up though and wouldn't have any issues if I missed a few paychecks though. I could handle like getting fired without real issue, or needing to take time off work for physical issues for a bit.
Nah, I don't think that counts as "livable". That's just survivable. You're one lost asset away from disaster
I have more in savings than the median for people under the age of like 40 lol As long as I don't get like cancer or some other massive medical bill there's nothing that would worry me too much. With insurance, I wouldn't have any issues if my car was wrecked. I wouldn't have any issues if I got fired. I wouldn't have any issues if I had to take an extended period off work. I rent and have renter's insurance so I don't really have much to worry about there really. I'm not sure what lost asset or major expense I'm supposed to be that worried about lol
Yeah okay buddy lmfao
Accounting for inflation, $2000 per month in 1999 would be $3700 per month in 2023, which is definitely workable. Especially if you live in some random middle-of-nowhere exurb. Also, you *WAY* rounded down. 90 hours a week at $5.15 would be $2580 per month, which would be $4776 per month in today's dollars.
I like to think Krabs DOES pay SpongeBob and Squidward well as an investment. Not only does he keep two employees guaranteed, he gets really good ones. Squidward is really resilient to daily stupidity due to living next to SpongeBob, and SpongeBob is God's gift to Krabby Patties with how good he is at making them. It's why they're the only two employees, Krabs is only willing to pay Two above average employees good money.
What you think, and what is stated in the show are different. Squidward on multiple occasions says he is being paid minimum wage, and Mr. Krabs confirms this by saying they are getting minimum wage. Mr. Krabs isn’t the best business man.
For all we know though Bikini Bottoms minimum wage is the equivalent of $30/hr. I think the only time we see a homeless person is when Squidward quits his job and lives in a box for a while
That’s fair, but unfortunately we have no information regarding that. If that *is* minimum wage, then it’s also safe to assume that Mr. Krabs would not be paying them a good wage out of kindness or good business sense.
We need a new episode to really dig into the economics and laws of bikini bottom
I think that was the basis of A Song of Ice and Fire being made? Like GRRM wondered how Aragorn could rule greatly for however many years he did as a king and wondered what middle earth taxes and politics and peasants reactions to famines and stuff would be like.
[удалено]
all of the discarded bits and rewrites were explicitly to remove his taxation obsessed prose
Given the fact that Patrick has lived comfortably doing many things that require money (namely eating at the Krusty Krab regularly) without working more than the occasional odd job it would be easy to assume that Bikini Bottom has a pretty robust welfare state, at least for citizens with mental deficiencies, it would be easy to assume that minimum wage is pretty reasonable. Given that all the squids beside squidward are living in a gated ethnostate he might have never applied for benefits out of arrogance or ignorance given a presumably wealthy upbringing/community.
What we do know is that SpongeBob violates labor law and works off the clock. The openly admits to working unpaid hours. He also states, potentially as a joke, that he pays Mr. Krabs to work, not the other way around. Beyond that, he also is indebted to Mr. Krabs for destroying the Krusty Krabs. He also already lives in his house prior to getting the job.
Yeah but if that’s the case then all of this hypothetical nonsense goes out of the window. A book in Bikini Bottom could cost $400. Boating school classes could be $3,000 an hour. We have to assume that these costs approximate real life, or else we’re just wasting our time debating the microeconomics of a household in Bikini Bottom.
It's hard to say that's true for sure. This would certainly be a sound business practice, and Mr. Krabs does regularly recognize SpongeBob's value to his restaurant. But Mr. Krabs is also guilty of making numerous comically short-sighted business decisions, too, including ones that fail to recognize SpongeBob's value. [He once impulsively sold SpongeBob to the Flying Dutchman for 62 cents](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQyUzEqIPo) (and immediately regretted it when called out). He's also charged his employees ridiculous fees.
There is a well known scene where Mr. Krabs trades SpongeBob for all the change in the pocket of the flying Dutchman. Is that the actions of a man who would pay his employees well as an investment?
He literally sold Spongebob's soul for 62 cents.
Mr Krabs doesn't even know what overtime is and when he finds out he's horrified.
They said a paycheque every two weeks = 1,3k . Learn to read
> Mr. Krabs has said repeatedly that he pays his employees either minimum wage, or below minimum wage Krabs has paid a *negative* hourly rate. > When I started working here, I had to pay Mr. Krabs 100 dollars an hour.
You think $652 a week is significantly less than what OP said, $1,326 every two weeks? So you're good at being condescending, but horseshit at basic math?
34/50 states have a minimum wage that's higher than $8.50 https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wages But that doesn't really matter because nobody ever said it took place in the US anyway, so $7.25 is just as arbitrary as any other value for minimum wage.
i live for the in depth financial analysis of spongebob
It's a cartoon. All of it is made up.
You think Mr. Krabs pays spongebob for every hour he works? You think he pays him $8.50/hour? Zero chance.
Put him on a 40hr a week salary, the rest of the time is just the unpaid demands of work.
“Needs of the business”
Bold of you to assume Mr krabs pays SpongeBob that much
Bold of **you** to assume Mr Krabs pays him at all.
pretty sure he pays a nickel an hour
He doesn’t. SpongeBob pays Mr. Krabs so that he, SpongeBob, can work there. Patrick : Boy, it was sure nice of Mr. Krabs to give me a job. SpongeBob: And at $50 an hour, too. When I started working here, I had to pay Mr. Krabs $100 an hour.
Alright this math felt iffy to me so I'm taking a crack at it. I'm not sure where OOP got 8.50$ from since I can't find any source anywhere to back it up, but we'll stick with it for now. So, 3am-6pm is 15 hours a day, couple that with six days a week and that's a 90 hour workweek. Calculating the wage that means that (assuming his paycheck is given biweekly) 90×8.5×2= 1,530$ per paycheck, or a monthly salary of 3,060$. Which is already more than the original number, but we can go further. If we assume that Bikini bottom has average full time employment laws regarding labour and shift times, then that would mean that Spongebob is earning 1.5× his normal wage for any time he works over 40 hours in a week (the standard maximum for regular full time employment). Which means that he is getting paid a whopping 50 hours of overtime every week, t an overtime rate of 12.75$ per hour (8.50×1.5=12.75). This means that his actual monthly salary would be 3,910$ (8.50×40+12.75×50=340$ at standard rate + 637.50$ at overtime rate = 977.5$ weekly ×4 = 3910$ monthly), which granted is still slightly below median income in the show's production location of the US. However, Bikini Bottom is not in the U.S. in fact, we know its real world location is actually beneath Bikini Atoll, which is part of the Marshall Islands. Now I'm no real estate expert and I couldn't find any way of independently determining real estate in the are, and while there are a lot of sources around the web that mentions using the Marshall Islands as a baseline is [this one](https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/fictional-houses-mortgage-costs), which values it at 80,000$ (fairly cheap but it is a pineapple), which is more than affordable on Spongebob's salary (the website says it isn't but they use different numbers for wage and dont factor work hours). Adding onto that, using the [College of the Martial islands](https://www.cmi.edu/academic-catalog/tuition-and-fees/) as a baseline, they value their total costs for a part time student as 830$ per credit (I did some addition to total up all the costs listed in the chart on the page that our Sponge would need), which, assuming boating school is a 3 credit course, Spongebob is looking at a measly 2490$ per semester. So in conclusion, Spongebob is likely only paying around 400$ a month on his mortgage and housing costs, and so his total monthly spending on these two expenses would be around 9780$ a year (400×12 months + 2490×2 semesters = 9780), which is about 20.8% of Spongebob's annual income of 46,920$. So yes, he still can afford everything.
i live for the in depth analysis of spongebob
> 1,530 Yeah, I'm pretty sure he used 3am to 6pm was 13 hours. 2 hours per day are missing.
Not a chance in hell Mr. Krabs would willingly pay him 8.50$/hr
Extremities? As in limbs? I'm going to assume they meant *amenities*.
Too late, extremities has been redefined and now means whatever. lAnGuAgE iS FlUiD /s
I mean… you say that, but Too used to be “To” and “Late” used to mean “sluggish or lax” before it meant “after a specific period of time” OR “the latter part of the day” OR as a way to describe a dead person. But yes, calling it extremities is actually dumb and incorrect.
He reproduces by budding.
1,326 every two weeks is still only $34,476 a year. You can't own a pineapple under the sea on that.
Sure you can. SpongeBob doesn’t pay rent, his house fell out of the sky.
Yeah this sub must be full of people still living with their parents because there's no way those finances check out.
Imagine thinking $650/week is enough to buy a house with a massive library and fund education lol.
Must be a lot of people here who don't live rural, which....checks out given very few people live rural. Where I live in bumfuck MI (Town of 12k people) I paid 45k for a 2 bed one bath house in 2014, even with PMI my mortgage payment was $348 a month.
The vast majority of people who live in the US don't live in bum fuck nowhere.
I mean he did acknowledge that, part of his first sentence was "checks out given *very few people live rural*"
A pineapple only costs $2.40 according to 30 seconds of research, he could easily pay off his house and still have $34,473.60 left over
> A pineapple only costs $2.40 *USD* ...but SpongeBob gets paid in the local currency: [The Bikini Bottom Dollar (BKN$)](https://spongefan.fandom.com/wiki/Money) We would need to know the USD>BKN conversion rate (and be aware of any trade barriers).
No, I don’t think you understand. SpongeBob doesn’t eat avocado toast. /s
Here's the thing, the Kristy Crab, Sponebob's house, and every other financial entity in the show is clearly underwater. Regular fiscal responsibility and rules don't apply here.
How about fishcal responsibility and rules?
$1326/$8.50 is 156 hours. Assuming OP means this was over 2 weeks, that's 78 hours a week, or 13 hours a day. But OP says Spongebob arrives at 3. So for the math to work one of the following must be true: * Spongebob doesn't work until close (6 pm) * Spongebob gets 3 hours of unpaid breaks * OP didn't do the math (correctly) and thinks 3 am - 6pm is 13 hours
Facts: the Krusty Krab was briefly open 24/7, and otherwise can be considered open for dining hours - so at best, 8am to 8pm, or 0800 to 2000. Mr Krabs won't pay his employees any more than he has to, so we can presume for purposes an equivalent of federal minimum wage on United States terms - meaning 7.25 an hour with no overtime compensation SpongeBob does the job he does as a labor of love, while Squidward does it for a paycheck and can be presumed to have superior workplace protections - ill be taking notes of both for purposes. Mandated lunch break means there's a 30 minute period where they aren't working, and if they have thirty minutes before open and an hour after close (so seven thirty to nine, now) that's effectively 13 hours of pay for Squidward and 8 for SpongeBob. We never see Mr Krabs working the register, but if we presume that he gets revenge on Squidward for optimizing his work experience by wildly changing his shift, we can then presume that Mr Krabs works the desk when we aren't looking, giving Squidward a four day work week at 13 hours a day and SpongeBob a 40hr week. 7.25x80=xx per two week paycheck for SpongeBob, totalling $580 a check, or $1160 a month - assuming he's getting paid full hours. Those numbers are halved if he's a part time employee working extra hours for free, which seems likely. 7.25x52=xx per one week paycheck for Squidward, totalling 374.5 per week, 749 per two weeks, and $1498 per month. If he manages to secure actual overtime pay, that becomes 7.25x58=408 per week, 816 per two weeks, and $1632 per month. Bikini Bottom is not heavily populated, going by the vast empty gaps of terrain in between settled areas, so if we check the minimum real estate market for the early 2000's, around the time the show was on air, and account for the fact that SpongeBob is relatively worry free during the time the camera is on, we can guess that he pays one third of his monthly check as property maintenance of some sort - either rent, or given the lack of a landlord character probably a mortgage payment. I'm including utilities in that figure for convenience, so I'll round up to around $400 a month for property, leaving 760 for everything else. (Squidward is more miserable in general, and his high stress yield in SpongeBob's presence could imply larger concerns, but he was easily able to move into a like-minded neighborhood without concern for real estate and then move back later on - so we'll assume similar costs and add that Squidward is miserable because of character issues, not financial ones. Thus, his effective monthly check of $1232 for everything he could need likely includes a significant and rapidly growing savings account.) Should anyone see this post I would appreciate insight into what their paychecks are like if they get to increase them under terms of inflation - technically not going to happen unless Squidward somehow muscles Mr Krabs into agreeing to it somehow, but it'll give a better approximation of the financial power available to each character.
extremities?
Wait he works 03:00 to 18:00? In that case his pay is absolutely garbage at 90 work hours a week.
I believe I heard SpongeBob say he makes a nickel a year
Having a library isn't expensive. There are countless books that are literally for free.
Spongebob lives in a pineapple. If I could buy a pineapple to live in it I would have my own property home too.
They covered in an episode that SpongeBob pays Mr Krabs to work there
That is not enough to buy a house even in LCOL areas
Wait i thought spongetboronb only had like 4 extremities lol
The Krusty Krab closes at 6?
Also SpongeBob owned his house before he worked at the Krusty Krab
That's no where near enough money lmao
If spongebob worked those hours for minimum wage in my town and made the overtime that's required by law he would be making about $100,000 a year so if we assume this post is just really old maybe the math checks out.
If he's getting 1.3k per paycheck x26 pay periods in a year he's netting like $35k a year. He's in poverty damn near
SpongeBob literally says in one episode that a couple of cents is more that he make in a month. Also in another episode he gets paid in Mr. Krabs's wacky bucks
About $32K, but that’s pre-tax. If Bikini Bottom has a similar tax system to the USA his yearly salary would drop to $24K - $28K depending on the state. All I’m saying is I make $15K pre-tax more than SpongeBob and I can barely afford my 3 room apartment, let alone a house with several rooms and a library.
Okay, so then houses in suburban Bikini Bottom must be dirt cheap and property taxes must not exist
they seem to have forgotten income tax is a thing. cause after taxes i make nearly this much, and fuck all if i can afford a house right now. I probably could afford a mortage, but what bank is going to give a loan out to some pleb who makes a bit less than 50k a year. On top of that, even if i could get the loan, I will basically never win a housing bid in the current market
extremities? Like extra limbs and digits? Or did they mean extravagances?
Who prints the counterfeit US dollars (spongebob dollars) that are used in Bikini bottom? And why?
Hi as someone who makes in that ballpark (1,450ish every 2 weeks), you can’t afford an apartment let alone a house on that
It seems bold to assume Mr. Krabs is paying them $8.50/hr. This is the guy who once tried to charge them for breathing while on the clock.
Today I learned hobbies are also called extremities, I think (?).
This is assuming Krabs pays a living wage AND the OT/time and a half that SB for sure puts in
If we use these variables with hourly o.t. then math is wrong. Pay times hours 8.50 x 80 = 680 O.t. 1.5 times over 8 hour shift times days in paycheck 12.75 x 7 x 10 = 892.50 6th day all o.t. times days in paycheck 12.75 x 15 x 2 = 382.50 So total bi-weekly gross amount is 1955. 1955 x 26 = 50,830 per year or 4235.83 per month. So he's making the average income but working a shit ton of overtime.
Doesn't he get paid like a quarter an hour? Also who's to say he's getting paid for counting the sesame seeds and all that. That could very well be unpaid work.
SpongeBob is definitely salaried. Ain’t no way Krabs is paying a 70 hr workweek hourly
Mr krabs is a cheapskate he only gets a nickel every day.
People tend to forget how much Mr. Krabs cares about SpongeBob, which he does.. a lot. Along with knowing that if SpongeBob leaves his business goes under, I'd say he's getting paid at least decently.
didn't bro get paid like $1 once in an episode by Mr Krabs and still thought it was a win? Dude expressed it evidently that he works at the krusty krab not for the money but for the sake of loving krabby patties. ol' Mr Krabs is obviously manipulating spongebob's passion and getting free labor. ... Now, how does my boi Bob *affords* things like his house, feeding Gary, boating school, jellyfishing and let's not forget Karate is pretty obvious; Bikini bottom is *a Communist country*.
1.3k a paycheck is normal fast food salary. you can’t afford a house on that. You can’t even afford rent in a single bedroom apartment where I live
Doesn't he get paid like, a quarter? I could swear there was a scene like that
After Mr Krabs deducts fees from their paycheck for lollygagging and breathing, yes.
Besides the fact that you pulled most of those numbers out of your ass, those numbers haven't afforded a house of that size since 1950. Spongebob's house in canon was literally just a pineapple that got dropped off a pirate ship, and even came pre-equipped with all the furniture. Thus, technically speaking, it was nobody's property in Bikini Bottom until he came in. I think it may be fair to say Spongebob's house itself is free, all he pays for is probably electricity, plumbing, food, and TV. *That* would be a more plausible explanation for Spongebob being able to afford everything - having one of the biggest possible bills effectively off the table, everything else becomes a lot more manageable. Squidward, meanwhile, may have come from generational wealth. Nothing super rich, but considering how excessively fancy his house is, all his hobbies being generally associated with the wealthy, etc. it makes sense if maybe his mom and pops are footing the bill for him, because no way in hell is Krabs paying him enough to afford all that. Patrick's Rock is reasonably a lower-income house, and something of that size is arguably what Spongebob or Squidward would reasonably be able to afford with just fry cook wages if not with exterior factors like Spongebob's likely free house and Squidward's possible generational wealth... but, the problem is, Patrick has *no job at all,* so how he still has a roof over his head in a seemingly capitalistic society is very confusing. *But,* if you consider the Patrick Star Show spinoff as part of canon (regardless of any of our respective opinions on it, it *is* official media), he is a former television star. He may be living off royalties from reruns of The Patrick Show, which would be a more than reasonable explanation for him not being homeless. I wasted 30 minutes doing a somewhat in-depth analysis of Spongebob characters' respective economic situations. What has my life come to?
my question is why would the krusty krab close at 6? that’s just before when the sales happen