Also https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/02/08/fact-check-bob-cratchits-salary-higher-than-us-minimum-wage/8987313002/

The most damning point of which is that cratchet isn’t destitute; underpaid for his job maybe, but manual laborers were often making half his hourly wage at the time and any reader would have known this.