Ralph Kramden's salary [View all]

Ralph: Quiet, I don't want my salary to leak out.
Alice: You're salary couldn't drip out.
_

OK, I know it's a work of fiction, but it always bugs me when something doesn't quite fit. Ralph was a NY bus driver, so why were they living in squalor? We're they paid that badly back then?

I seem to recall that the bus company was a private business, and not a city job with a union. That doesn't explain why Ed was also living in the same building. He had a government job. We're they paid that badly?