At the time of this quote, a "job" was still very different from what it is now. For starters, you could almost certainly live off of it while not going into poverty.
A "job" now will require as much time and effort, and often hugely inflated education requirements, while paying peanuts.
Also, fuck Ronald Reagan in the afterlife. I hope he gets rimmed by a sentient cactus for all eternity in his own personal hell.
The minimum wage in 1981 when Reagan took office was $3.35 or $6,867.50 per year. In today's dollars, that would be $11.27 or $23,103.50 per year. When he left office at the end of 1988, it was $3.35, which in today's dollars would be $8.66 or $17,753 per year.
In 1981, the poverty level for a family of four was $9,287, or 35% more than the minimum wage. By 1988, the poverty level had risen to $12,090, or 76% more than the minimum wage.
So you're right, at the time Reagan was sworn in, the minimum wage was higher than it is today, but by the time he left office its value had dropped significantly. At no point during his presidency was a job guaranteed to provide a living wage, and he was the first two-term president to not raise the minimum wage at all.
Yeah I often talk with my wife how when I was young only freshly minted teenagers made minimum wage and if you came in on time and sober for your shifts you quickly got a token raise and continued to get one usually like less than a year timeframe. It would be like a nickle after maybe first big quarter one but it was there. Then like the shift manager of a fast food place was an adult who could afford an apartment of their own and a beater car. I was so unappreciative of the amount I got paid in high school in terms of eggs per hour.
Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison parroted this a 2019, as a way to deny an increase in welfare payments:
"The best form of welfare is a job."
At that time, roughly 540000 welfare recipients in Australia were long-term unemployed, as in they'd been unable to find employment in at least 12 months.
There were tons of homeless people during Reagan's time.
He closed down California's mental hospitals, promising that the mentally ill would be handled in the community. Without supervision they became street people. In the end, increased police costs of dealing with the homeless outweighed any benefit closing the hospitals could have had.
After it failed in California, he took it national.
The stupid thing is that back when that comment was made you actually could live off minimum wage, so they actually don't even understand the context of their own post.