Been rewatching Seinfeld for the first time in easily over 10 years. It recently came out on Netflix and while every bit as amazing as I remember, the character of Kramer as an adult moves from a laugh to a question mark.
No job
No clear source of income.
No mention of any prior money or connection.
Has a one bedroom apartment on 81st street in the upper west side of NYC.
For years, people have wondered how he was actually able to live there and this is why I believe NYC rent control may have been the answer.
What I learned about Kramer from casually rewatching the show.
He’s lived in that apartment since 1969.
The pilot episode of the series has Jerry mention he’s not left the building in 20 years, which that episode came out in 1989, presenting a case he’s been there since 1969.
He did have a job previously and even his salary.
The episode “The Betrayal”, which is famous for it being backwards scene by scene, shows at the end, Jerry & Kramer met 11 years prior in the final flashback scene. That came out in 1997, which would mean they met in 1986, 3 years before the show began.
The same season an episode called “The Strike” came out, which revealed Kramer worked as a bagel chef who was on strike for 12 years, a year before meeting Jerry.
Complaint was they wanted $5.45 an hour, which was around the minimum wage in 1997, of $5.15. Assuming he made minimum wage in 1985, $3.35 an hour.
He used to have roommates.
In the season 4 episode “the airport”, he mentioned he used to live on 18th and 3rd and had a roommate. We can make a guess he might have had other roommates when younger and moving into his famous apartment.
Looking at this, I think there is a case Kramer’s life makes sense.
Lets say he moved into the apartment in 1969.
The average one bedroom apartment cost on 81st street is sort of hard to find, because records back then are a little difficult. One thing I did find though was an article from 2014 detailing the story of a person who moved to 81st street in 1970. His claimed rent payment was $45 a month.
Assuming Kramer paid that and worked as a bagel shop worker, he’d have made $1.85 an hour doing under the NYC minimum wage at the time, which 40 hours a week, he’d be making $74 a month.
If he had a roommate, he’d have easily been able to afford a rent of $22.50 a month.
If Kramer held onto NYC rent control, he’d have been able to live out the 70s, 80s and 90s, while never paying any noticeable rent.
Which sounds crazy, but found another story in The NY Times from 2012 about a senior living in soho, who moved there in the 1940s and off of rent control, only pays $55 a month.
For the character of Kramer, it confused a lot of people, but likely, he was a guy living in Manhattan during the 90s which only had a $45 a rent month, where I’m pretty sure a person walking around Manhattan looking for loose change on the floor can find that within a days work.
It’s obviously a little silly to write about rent control and a fictional character, but amusing the idea of someone like Kramer could in theory exist and get by pretty well while never working with bad policy.
For rent control, it has almost no support with economists, but simple fix for NYC should be something like a buyout policy, where if a landlord shows up and offers a tenant something like 3 years rent, they are gone in 90 days. This way, we at least avoid reckless abuse.
Anyway, Seinfeld is finally on Netflix and probably will write a couple more things on this.