In the episode where Meathead gets 200 dollars (equivalent of roughly five thousand dollars today) and wants to donate all of it to George McGovern's campaign instead of giving some of it to Archie and Edith to cover expenses like the groceries he consumes at a rapid rate or saving some if for a down payment on an apartment so he and Gloria didn't have to live with Ma and Daddy forever, the minute he said what he was going to do with it Archie should've gone nuclear. While Mike's at school and Gloria's at her job at the department store Archie should've called the city and had all of Gloria and Mike's belongings that were valued at two hundred dollars taken to the dump and had the locks changed on the house so if Meathead and his wife were stupid he could lock them out and they could deal with '70s New York after dark because someone who is doing graduate school like Mike should know not to do something as stupid as donating 5,000 dollars to a campaign that was already having problems and obviously not going to get anywhere close to winning particularly when the episode air, particularly when he's living with in-laws who are being nice enough to let him crash at there place to get his education, eat all their food, only taking the chicken feed his wife earns working twenty hours a week part-time at the cosmetics counter (which even back then would not be able to cover even a one room studio apartment even in places like SoHo or Harlem) and allow him to get into repeated heated arguments with his father-in-law who for all his faults is pretty tolerant towards the disrespectful behavior directed towards him by son-in-law who is even more racist, sexist childish and hateful than he is is but gets away with because he's eloquent and (relatively speaking) handsome. It's no surprise that Archie not doing this caused a lot of problems as when the Stivics moved to California with no guidance or discipline they had marital problems, affairs, Mike stupidly lost the nice university job he had due to him and his wife (who had a young son to support at the time) stupidly joining in a nude protest a nuclear powerplant nearby and then ran off with a student because he had no maturity or strict discipline because he was proto-Millennial Manchild. Norman Lear is a great adapter, editor and chooser of writing talents, but he really dropped the ball when it came to this episode.

In the episode where Meathead gets 200 dollars (equivalent of roughly five thousand dollars today) and wants to donate all of it to George McGovern's campaign instead of giving some of it to Archie and Edith to cover expenses like the groceries he consumes at a rapid rate or saving some if for a down payment on an apartment so he and Gloria didn't have to live with Ma and Daddy forever, the minute he said what he was going to do with it Archie should've gone nuclear. While Mike's at school and Gloria's at her job at the department store Archie should've called the city and had all of Gloria and Mike's belongings that were valued at two hundred dollars taken to the dump and had the locks changed on the house so if Meathead and his wife were stupid he could lock them out and they could deal with '70s New York after dark because someone who is doing graduate school like Mike should know not to do something as stupid as donating 5,000 dollars to a campaign that was already having problems and obviously not going to get anywhere close to winning particularly when the episode air, particularly when he's living with in-laws who are being nice enough to let him crash at there place to get his education, eat all their food, only taking the chicken feed his wife earns working twenty hours a week part-time at the cosmetics counter (which even back then would not be able to cover even a one room studio apartment even in places like SoHo or Harlem) and allow him to get into repeated heated arguments with his father-in-law who for all his faults is pretty tolerant towards the disrespectful behavior directed towards him by son-in-law who is even more racist, sexist childish and hateful than he is is but gets away with because he's eloquent and (relatively speaking) handsome. It's no surprise that Archie not doing this caused a lot of problems as when the Stivics moved to California with no guidance or discipline they had marital problems, affairs, Mike stupidly lost the nice university job he had due to him and his wife (who had a young son to support at the time) stupidly joining in a nude protest a nuclear powerplant nearby and then ran off with a student because he had no maturity or strict discipline because he was proto-Millennial Manchild. Norman Lear is a great adapter, editor and chooser of writing talents, but he really dropped the ball when it came to this episode.
That's one hell of a run-on sentence.

Yeah, he could've given Archie fifty dollars to at least pay the food bill. Mike was selfish on that front.

That's one hell of a run-on sentence.

Indeed. But I do agree that Mike was wrong to want to give all the money to the McGovern campaign. I was a teenager back then and McGovern had no way of winning. The only thing everyone wondered was HOW MUCH he’d lose by.

A reasonable compromise would have been to donate $25 to the campaign and give the rest to Archie.

I was never a fan of Mike anyways—intensely disliked his smugness.

Its a sitcom. Mike stiffing Archie made for one of the best episodes of the series. In the end, the meathead secretly gets a job to pay back Archie. It showed some humanity in the meathead.
Mike's extremely liberalism vs Archie's extreme bigotry created the best sitcom of TV.
Of course, this episode had most of America taking Archie's side which was a rare event, another reason this is one of my favorite episodes.
At least he bought his wife a winter coat with the money ;)

How could anyone know this? There was no internet then. There was no sitcom program where people discussed their feelings about shows. Radio talk shows were all local, and seldom talked about TV. Discussion of TV was limited to maybe one columnists at the big newspapers in each city.

For me, there are a couple keys to the episode. One is that Mike is displaying what comes to be called virtue signaling: he has not just needs for himself but some responsibility for Gloria, yet he throws the money away just so that others can him throwing it away. In some circles he gains approval, even though he didn't work for the money and isn't giving up any essentials.

More important, though, is that it shows he misunderstands what Archie is doing for him. Mike thinks that Archie's favor is the money that Archie spends in supporting him, and that the favor will be repaid when Mike pays the money back. That's wrong: Archie gave Mike time and safety and family. These things don't get paid back, you just become part of the family and reciprocate when you're able. That should include spreading a little money around if some happens to fall from the sky.
Common sense tells you this. The script was written as such for Mike to put his liberal principles above the family.....purposely making a family feud. In the end, Mike goes to work and is the good guy but I dont think we needed the internet to know most people would be outraged at Mike's decision. That's the point of the show. Most times people are outraged at Archie and gasping how bad he can be. This time many/most would not agree with Mike's decision. Gloria defended Mike in the beginning of the episode but in the end, she confronts Mike and asks him to see things from her dad's side.