All I know my mom was able to buy a used four barrel mint condition Superbee and her parents a 1/4-1/2 acre of land for her parents to retire on because they were too old to work their farm back in the late 1960s-very early 1970s for under $5000 while being able to keep up with her bills and still have plenty left over to have a bit of a social life. And all of that was during her time as an unmarried single woman.
Granted her job was reading blueprints and running an artificial diamond tipped drill at a Sylvania plant which no doubt paid a lot more than a McDonald's cash register but still. The point is that there was a time when even a 'minimum wage job' still could let people afford quite a bit.
Guess she never heard of the Irish Republican Army. . .who was connected to Far Left radicalism. . .and according to some sources from back in the day, there were also militant Catholics that got a backing or two from the Vatican to stir up crap between Ireland's Catholics and Protestants.