Lowest Wage You Ever Worked For
OK, I'm talking about what you were paid for work as an adult, 18 yrs. or older.
At 18, I worked as a dishwasher for 1.25 an hour. It kept me in gas money for the summer before I enlisted into the USAF.
At 18, I worked as a dishwasher for 1.25 an hour. It kept me in gas money for the summer before I enlisted into the USAF.
0
-
When I was 18 and working partime at the gun shop I was paid the minimum wage, which at the time was $2.65 per hour. When I began working full time and my pay moved up to $6 per hour, I thought I was rich. 0 -
I remember when my military enlistment was up, finding a civilian job that paid 5 bucks an hour would cover all expenses for a young family of 3! 
8-)0 -
I was 18 in 1978 and inflation that year was around 9%, followed by 13% in 79, 13% in 80, 9% in 81 and 4% in 82. By then the purchasing power of my $6 per hour had been reduced by nearly 50%, which put me damned near back at $2.65 per hour! I was grudgingly given a fifty cents per hour raise, and that was what set me on course to leave the shop and become my own boss. 0 -
1.25 hour when I was 16 part time after school and weekends
but living at home I saved up to buy my 1st car 800.00 ) and had money to fix it up ( cragars headers the normal stuff ) keep gas and a date in it
buy my own clothes even a few guns .. but than again I was living at home0 -
As an adult, 5 bucks an hour. Late 70s/early 80s. 0 -
I?ve never worked a minimum wage job, unless you count the military :geek:
Fresh out,in ?93, I got a job in a factory for $8/hr. Minimum wage was like $4.25.
Only lasted long enough to find a good masonry job.
Jack of all trades, master of none.0 -
Back in 1980 during Carters recession I worked on a ranch for $5/day plus my room and board. We ate VERY well, though! Steak and eggs for breakfast, sack lunches, and then big dinners and usually pie or cake for dessert. If I hadn't been working my ass off I would have put on 50 pounds!
That only lasted about three months until I got a job bumping knots on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska for the princely sum of $11.25/hour. That was pretty big money for a 20 year old kid back then!0 -
I worked at a restaurant where, unless you were the actual cook, they paid everyone the minimum wage for wait staff. I think that is $2.12 per hour. I never got tips since I didn't really interact with customers. So, I put it on my time card and he bitched about it every time he had to pay the difference to get to the minimum wage, which in ~87 or so was maybe 3.25 or so?!?
I grew up on a farm, and worked for neighboring farmers too. That was mighty hard work per dollar earned.0 -
In 1959 I was a Junior Clerk in the Minneapolis City Hall, making $239 a month (@ $1.38/hr.). 0 -
I swept floors and cleaned machines in a machine shop for $4.25 an hour at 15 years old. It was dirty, it was hot and they always wanted me to be moving fast.
It was also totally awesome- they taught me about machining, tooling, how to set up measurement and inspection equipment.
It beat the hell out of working fast food like most of my friends in high school.
Looking back- even if I had worked for free my education there would have been totally worth it.
To this day- when I am talking to a machinist, a tool & die maker or an inspector -I do alot more listening than talking.0 -
I can not remember what my "Pay," was at the time, but back when I was 14, (1973-74) I worked at a large pet store in Miami, (rode my bike about 4-5 miles +, in order to get there.) cleaning poop and pee out of cages where dogs and cats were for sale. Received incoming snake shipments, cleaned and maintained a sheeitload of fishtanks, etc. etc.
Not many people would do that now a days, for minimum wage.0 -
In 1965, fresh out of high school I worked at Hause Valve in Montpelier, Ohio at a reasonable wage at that time, $1.65 an hour. By August I was able to buy quite a bit of my college things because of that job both the summer of 65 and 66. 0 -
Now there is a term I have not heard in a long long time!NeoBlackdog wrote:bumping knots0 -
What ever military pay was back in 1972...Not much but better than bucking hay for 5 Cents bale! Our crew could put up 900-1000 a day...Back then a pair of Levis were $4.75 a pair and we would go through a pair a week... 0 -
When I had my custom farming operation a "customer" shafted me out of the pay for no-till drilling 120 acres of soybeans so I guess I worked for free plus I was out the fuel in my tractor. 0 -
If I remember correctly,E-1 pay was about 62 bucks a month in 1970. 0 -
Early 1960s, busboy/dishwasher for Shoney's Big Boy. 65? an hour, plus a meal if I worked over 4 hours. There was a sub-minimum wage for some jobs. 0 -
buddyb wrote:If I remember correctly,E-1 pay was about 62 bucks a month in 1970.
Pretty sure it was $115/mo. In 1979.
Plus Room & Board, Chow Hall, Health care, Physical activity/Gym membership, etc. :shock: :roll:0 -
3.10/ hr. (minimum wage) and it all went to gas, beer and cigarettes. 0 -
Not many around that will remember that.Horse Plains Drifter wrote:
Now there is a term I have not heard in a long long time!NeoBlackdog wrote:bumping knots
I worked in a yard between Craig and Klawock where they'd haul the trees in (biggest I saw up there was a hemlock about 7' in diameter), lay 'em out in decks, and then I'd go through and clean 'em up so they'd fit in the holds of the Japanese ships anchored just offshore. It was probably one of the safest jobs one can have while logging, but I still about got killed twice a day!0 -
First ? public? job working as a tech in an insane asylum. Made $2.26 an hour in 1977 0 -
Back in 1967, I worked for Burger Chef. I worked the front counter, taking orders. Made burgers and cooked french fries for 90 cents an hour. Whoo Hoo. :shock: 0 -
Put up hay, and planted trees for Continental Can, don't remember the wage but it was better than no money at all.
Back in 1990 I started all over in a new Career and started at 8 bucks an hour, retired at a little over 100K.0 -
In 1959 I was an apprentice concrete finisher working at journeyman wages of $3.25 an hour. That was a pretty good wage. I got a chance to go to work at a new DuPont plant that had just been finished. I asked the union rep what he would do and he said he wouldn't hesitate and to go for it. I hired on for $1.95 an hour, $78.00 a week before deducts. I though I would starve to death, my house payment was $81.00 a month. I stayed there for 37 years, it was a good place to work. I helped build that plant and was working in the power house when it shut down and I got to pull the switch. 0 -
Got my Army commission (ROTC) in fall of '72.
Don't remember what it was, but do remember that I really looked forward to my promotion to 1LT because that would happen at the same time I went over 2 years service; both were a nice pay raise.
Got my paycheck and it was $32 less.
The raise was enough to bump me up an IRS bracket :evil:0 -
First at 12 was 35 cents/hr. In high school I worked part time jobs for $1.35 hr. Best paid $10 for ten minutes of tasting beer. 0 -
Wild Turkey wrote:Got my Army commission (ROTC) in fall of '72.
Don't remember what it was, but do remember that I really looked forward to my promotion to 1LT because that would happen at the same time I went over 2 years service; both were a nice pay raise.
Got my paycheck and it was $32 less.
The raise was enough to bump me up an IRS bracket :evil:
Even when I began working there were something like 25 individual tax brackets, which ranged as high as 70% :shock: . An increase in your income of as little as ten bucks a week could cost you an additional 1% in tax at the end of the year. That was crazy.0 -
Back when a million bucks was really something I made the whopping sum of $1.65/ hour. The 2 gentlemen that I worked for were multi millionaires. Fast forward a few years and I was running one of their businesses and making a pretty good living, at least for the time period - mid 70s. Paid cash for a new 74 loaded Buick century. In 78 I financed a new Camaro for the wife for 12 months. Only did that to get a credit history for a mortgage. I've found that if you pay attention making money ain't that hard. What was hard was keeping some of it and not living check to check. Bob 0 -
Went to trade school after high school . Basic electronics and radio television repair. Went to work in a small repair shop for $2.50 an hour. Got wiped out by a trucker on my motorcycle and lost that job as I was laid up healing for some time. Then accepted a $2.00 an hour job as a Quality control inspector with the promise of a sizable raise within 6 months. When 6 months were up I asked about my raise. My supervisor said he had put me in for a raise but it was turned down.
When I asked what size raise he put me in for he said 5 cents an hour. I told him I was taking the rest of the day off to go look for a decent job. I walked across the street and was asked where I had been as they were looking for people with my background. They asked me when I could start. I said Monday (it was a Thursday) January 1969 . $2.85 an hour. I walked back to where I was working and retrieved my personal items, said goodbye and worked for the next 18.5 years on my new job. Started as a Tech and received promotion to Supervisor within 3 years. Worked mostly as a production supervisor. They kept up with wages pretty well. Then came my first heart attack at age 36.Omly lasted a couple more years working. Had 7 heart attacks, cancer, and a host of other medical problems. Was suppose to be dead a number of years ago according to the doctors.
So the answer is $2.00 per hour. Rest is just babble.0 -
Worked after school jr yr high school pumping gas at a Sunoco station for 1 dollar an hour. Baling hay for a penny a bale. 0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
40 comments