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business newsYesterday's TV, Today's Economy: "The Jeffersons"
By
Justin Rohrlich
Dec 17, 2009 7:50 am
George Jefferson would now find it harder to "move on up."
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Over the years, the cleaning business was good to the Jefferson family, allowing them to “move on up” from the working-class Glendale section of Queens, New York, to the “deluxe apartment in the sky” shown in the show’s opening credits.
The esteemed building, referred to as Colby East on the show, is in fact a 35-storey, 442-unit complex called The Park Lane on Manhattan’s affluent Upper East Side. Its real address is 185 East 85th Street. George and Weezy lived comfortably in apartment 12D, which, according to New York broker listings, is a one-bedroom apartment that rents for approximately $3,600 per month today.
So would an entrepreneur like George Jefferson be able to afford such style in today’s economy?
Apparently, yes, according to the results of a “survey” done in 2005 by CNN Money and Salary.com. The companies analyzed popular TV shows that prominently feature a father character in each decade since 1950 and matched the description of the character's occupation with a benchmark job title and salary.
Adjusted for 2005 inflation numbers, George Jefferson was ranked fifth among TV’s wealthiest fathers, with an annual income just above $555,000, based on estimated sales from his seven businesses. (He was one position behind vineyard owner Chase Gioberti of Falcon Crest who “took home” $677,000 per annum, and just ahead of sixth-ranked real-estate developer Michael Bluth of Arrested Development, who was afforded $527,000 a year).
But Salary.com completed its survey before the most recent recession. In 2009, drycleaners tend to struggle a bit more than those in business during George J’s day.
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Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Drycleaners in the western US reported the biggest decrease in sales for August 2009, with an average 11.4% drop compared to the previous year. Shops in the South averaged a 10.1% decrease. The Midwest, 6.6%. And in George Jefferson’s Northeast, drycleaners experienced an average 9.2% decrease in business.
One drycleaner in the South remarked, “I continually say that it cannot get any worse, and each month it does.”
Adding to the woes of drycleaners? The price of wire hangers.
In 2008, the Commerce Department instituted tariffs on wire hangers made in China, and the price of a box of 500 shirt hangers jumped from $17.95 to $41.60. That’s a difference that can quickly add up, costing New York drycleaners an extra $500 per month.
"It costs $0.10 per hanger and just two weeks ago it was $0.04," a drycleaning shop manager told The New York Post in 2008. "Everybody is desperate right now. If I knew before, I would have bought 100 boxes."
One drycleaner told a trade magazine, “I am disappointed our government did nothing to protect US-based hanger manufacturers soon enough. I will have to raise my prices.”
Another said simply, “This sucks.”
Legendarily salty George Jefferson would likely agree.
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No positions in stocks mentioned.
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