If one of your favorite foods as a student was a bean burrito, you had lots of friends who shared your taste for this nutritious, convenient fast food. Historic innovations made it possible.
Back in 1945, an engineer was testing a new vacuum tube (a magnetron) when he accidentally discovered its ability to heat food. He built a metal box around it to trap the magnetic energy field, and - voila - the microwave oven was invented. Then in 1956 someone else invented the frozen burrito. A new wave of college student cuisine was going to follow.
By 1979 you could buy a microwave at Sears for $399.85. An unskilled worker in 1979 was making an average of $3.69/hour, so it would have taken about 108 hours of work time for him to buy it.
An unskilled worker today averages $14.50/hour, and a microwave at Walmart is $74.00. To purchase it would today would take about 5 hours of work time.
The "time price" fell off a cliff. From 1979 until now, manufacturing innovations made a microwave cheaper both to make and to purchase. New eating options opened up to college students and everyone else.
from Gale Pooley's blog
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