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What was minimum wage when you started working? Approximately what year was it? What job was it if you don't mind.

I was in high school. The best my memory can do is in 1975 or 6 I got a job at Hardee's and minimum wage was $2.00 an hour. I was on my way! :)

Jack

$5.25 in 1997 at FoodLion (I was 16 by the way)

Prior to that I made $80 per day in the tobacco fields, but that was always a hard 10 hours.

xceptnl wrote:$5.25 in 1997 at FoodLion (I was 16 by the way)

Prior to that I made $80 per day in the tobacco fields, but that was always a hard 10 hours.

I assume you were paid in cash in the tobacco fields? Are you sure it was tobacco? :eek:

jackknifeh wrote:I assume you were paid in cash in the tobacco fields? Are you sure it was tobacco? :eek:

Yeah, pretty sure. Family farms was over 160 acres of tobacco. I only got $40 on the days I drove the tractor and $50 on the days I packed the barns. All cash!

I was 16, $4.25 in '95 as a grocery bag boy at the local grocery store was my first official payroll job. Before that I had several farm jobs that mostly paid by the job and not by minimum wage. The first job I can remember ever having been paid for, was to go around the front of our house and pick up cig butts for $.01 each, at about age 6 I think LOL. That was a big deal though because I got a Tootsie Roll for each of those pennies.

Evil D wrote:I was 16, $4.25 in '95 as a grocery bag boy at the local grocery store was my first official payroll job. Before that I had several farm jobs that mostly paid by the job and not by minimum wage. The first job I can remember ever having been paid for, was to go around the front of our house and pick up cig butts for $.01 each, at about age 6 I think LOL. That was a big deal though because I got a Tootsie Roll for each of those pennies.

Did you ever smoke? I'm thinking a job of picking up cigarette butts might really put someone off the habit. I'm sure the smell wasn't pleasant. Just seems like a "nasty" job that could have lasting effects. Then again, as teenagers who start smoking the reason is usually peer pressure I think. I mean who starts smoking for any other reason? I smoked in high school but never got anything out of it. Actually got sick on the first Marlboro.

jackknifeh wrote:Did you ever smoke? I'm thinking a job of picking up cigarette butts might really put someone off the habit. I'm sure the smell wasn't pleasant. Just seems like a "nasty" job that could have lasting effects. Then again, as teenagers who start smoking the reason is usually peer pressure I think. I mean who starts smoking for any other reason? I smoked in high school but never got anything out of it. Actually got sick on the first Marlboro.

Nope never smoked. Lit a few for people over the years and just couldn't understand the appeal. There are other more fun ways to subtract years off my life lol.

I started as a clerk at ALCO Discount in 1974 at $1.70/hr. After a couple of weeks, I got a raise to minimum wage - $2.00/hr.

$1.00 an hour, back in 1960 when I started working after school in a retail store. To put things in perspective, gas was 27 cents a gallon for regular, cigarettes were a quarter a pack or $2.00 a carton, Most name brand soft drinks were a dime from a vending machine as was a container of coffee from the deli. Most full size candy bars and daily newspapers were a nickel. As for automobiles, a brand new VW "Bug" sold for about $1500, a full size "no frills" Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth sedan for a around $2200, and a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud with all the bells and whistles, which was the only way they came, :D cost $12,500.

^ man to have a million dollars back in the sixties! :)

The Deacon wrote:$1.00 an hour, back in 1960 when I started working after school in a retail store. To put things in perspective, gas was 27 cents a gallon for regular, cigarettes were a quarter a pack or $2.00 a carton, Most name brand soft drinks were a dime from a vending machine as was a container of coffee from the deli. Most full size candy bars and daily newspapers were a nickel. As for automobiles, a brand new VW "Bug" sold for about $1500, a full size "no frills" Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth sedan for a around $2200, and a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud with all the bells and whistles, which was the only way they came, :D cost $12,500.

So lets see...By today's standards with minimum wage being 7.25, with one hour of working wage you could buy:

About 2 gallons of gas, whereas you could buy almost 4 gallons back then

Depending on where you live, you might get two packs of cigs, whereas you could get 4 packs

5 or so bottled soft drinks from a vending machine, whereas you could buy 10

Maybe 2-3 cups of coffee from Starbucks, whereas in your day you could buy 10

1 candy bar, you could buy 20

I don't even know what newspapers cost these days

I'm not even gonna try to do the math on the cars lol.

Evil D wrote:I'm not even gonna try to do the math on the cars lol.

I tried to do the math on the RR Silver Cloud and came up with around $$90,625. The current RR Ghost is around $255,000 that is a 281% increase.

xceptnl wrote:I tried to do the math on the RR Silver Cloud and came up with around $$90,625. The current RR Ghost is around $255,000 that is a 281% increase.

Oh, I wasn't really doing math like inflation, just figuring out what you could buy today with 1 hour of pay vs. back then with 1 hour of pay. You might be able to buy an air freshener for a RR for $1 back then but you can't buy spark plug for one today with an hour's pay.

Evil D wrote:Oh, I wasn't really doing math like inflation, just figuring out what you could buy today with 1 hour of pay vs. back then with 1 hour of pay. You might be able to buy an air freshener for a RR for $1 back then but you can't buy spark plug for one today with an hour's pay.

True, maybe you could buy a months worth of air fresheners?

The Deacon wrote:$1.00 an hour, back in 1960 when I started working after school in a retail store. To put things in perspective, gas was 27 cents a gallon for regular, cigarettes were a quarter a pack or $2.00 a carton, Most name brand soft drinks were a dime from a vending machine as was a container of coffee from the deli. Most full size candy bars and daily newspapers were a nickel. As for automobiles, a brand new VW "Bug" sold for about $1500, a full size "no frills" Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth sedan for a around $2200, and a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud with all the bells and whistles, which was the only way they came, :D cost $12,500.

Now this is a blast from my past...

ETA: I bought a Bug for not much more when I finished Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill in 1967.

I don't think Peru even *had* a minimum wage when I was growing up (they probably still don't?) And their currency has changed units twice since I left (each time at 1,000 of the old monetary unit = 1 of the new) so they have literally had over 1,000,000 times inflation since I was a kid. But since coming to the US in '78 after high school, I think minimum wage was around 2.85?

Looking at the job listings for programmers, I *dreamed* of one day having such an exorbitant salary - and now I make over twice that figure and still have no money - but I have a lot of Spydies! :) I think my first Spyderco was an Economy model in the '80s, and I probably paid $39 or $49. I drooled over the Police models, but could not afford them, I think they were $79 or $99 (in a store in the mall, no internet shopping then!)

Kind of hard to compare wages and costs vs then, some items like gas have so much added taxes included in the "cost" of a gallon that wasn't included then! Raise the minimum wage, and small companies that depend on that type of labor have to raise the prices on what they charge so they can pay the higher rate, hard to find a nice solution without getting all political :) .

I recall working for $1.30 per hour at some greenhouses doing labor work. Knowing the guy I was working for I doubt it was above minimum. I remember getting a raise up to $2.00 an hour after 2 years on the job only after 4 of us threatened to quit if we didn't get a raise. I was probably 14 at the time so early 70's.

I was 16 (2002) when I started caddying at a country club and I was getting 5 bucks an hour, but the tips was were the money was at, I remember getting a hundred bucks the one day and I thought I was sooo rich. Now in-days a hundred bucks seems like nothing anymore with inflation.

Minimum wage? What's that? :rolleyes: You see, my folks were fairly strict and wouldn't allow my younger brother and me to accept ANY type of monetary compensation when we were working our first construction jobs in high school. (Dad reasoned that learning a trade was a far better reward than receiving cash ). However, we were allowed to accept things such as lawn mowers as a form of “payment” for our labor. By the time I was eighteen, my brother and I had accumulated 17 Lawn Boy push mowers and 3 lawn tractors. Although my brother and I may have been cash poor, we were certainly lawn mower rich. :D Kinda’ funny to think about nowadays.

My first actual paycheck job was in 1985 as a busboy in a restaurant. I think minimum wage was $3.35 but we didn't make that because the waitresses had to give us a portion of their tips.
My first paying job, I think I was around 7 or 8, was shining my dad's shoes. I got 25 cents for a regular shine and 50 cents for a spit shine! When I was 12 I had two paper routes, a morning paper and an afternoon paper. Talk about a thankless job, any "pay" depended on tips you received when you went collecting the weekly fee from your customers. Never made a lot of money in tips but I did have one customer that gave me my two most memorable ones, a case of M&Ms and a puppy. :D My mother made me give the puppy back.