Was your Christmas bonus as small as Spider-Man’s in 1979?

The panel above is from 1979, and more specifically, issue 79 of the comic book Marvel Team-Up, a regular series that featured Spider-Man teaming up with another Marvel character. This issue featured Spidey collaborating with Red Sonja, who’s from the world of Conan the Barbarian.

But what’s of more interest to me is the ten-dollar Christmas bonus J. Jonah Jameson gave to Peter Parker. Is it as measly as it sounds? How much would a $10 Christmas bonus in 1979 be worth today?

Fortunately, we live in an era where finding out is pretty easy. There’s no shortage of inflation calculators online, and the one provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis says that $10 in 1979 is equivalent to $41.47 in 2023 dollars.