Minimum Wage...How Much Were You Paid?

[Dennis Heaton]

With all the talk going on these days about the minimum wage and wanting to bump it up to $10.10 an hour (I guess that was a good compromise between $9.09 and $11.11), I couldn't help but think back to how much I got paid on my first job back in 1969 (while in High School)...$1.65 (Full-Time).

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

[catch22]

I think somewhere in the $9 range.

[Dennis Heaton]

catch22...what year?

[Garin]

My first job was at a grocery store when i was 15 I think I made around $3.50 an hour that was 1989 , When I got married in 1993 I was making $4.75 and i still work at the same place. Bought my first new car, Bought our first house, and had our first child in 94.

[ctchandler]

I threw papers, sold doughnuts, neither of which was hourly, and then worked as a sack boy at the Reding Shopping Center Humpty Dumpty grocery store. That was my first hourly wage and it was 50 cents per hour. I got a 5 cent raise when I moved to the produce department. That was in 1957. When I was 16 (1959) I was making $1.25 at a Phillips 66 service station and then for the board of education, maintenance section as a summer hire. It went downhill from there, I joined the Navy for $78 per month. That averages 41.25 cents per hour.
C. T.

[Pete]

My first job doing maintenance at a hotel near I-40 & Meridian in 1976 was $2.25 an hour.

I still have a pay stub.

[bluedogok]

I think 2.35/HR at Han's BBQ in 1979.

[catch22]

catch22...what year?

Oops, sorry for some reason I thought the title said How much do you think it should be.

[MadMonk]

I think it was around $3.25/hour. This would be around '83/'84.

[Dennis Heaton]

I threw papers, sold doughnuts, neither of which was hourly.

I delivered papers in the morning before school (6th grade)...1963-64, and I sold Greeting Cards door-to-door too. That was on top of all the chores I had to do that I got .50 (fifty cents) allowance for each week.

[ThomPaine]

My first job was at a grocery store when i was 15 I think I made around $3.50 an hour that was 1989 , When I got married in 1993 I was making $4.75 and i still work at the same place. Bought my first new car, Bought our first house, and had our first child in 94.

Wow. You were able to buy a new car and a house and pay the hospital on less than $10,000.

I hope you're at least paying your fair share of taxes on the millions you've made since on your guidebook: "How to buy a house, a new car and have a baby on less than $40 a day."

[Achilleslastand]

I was a carhop at sonic and made I wanna say next to nothing this was in the late 70s ,also had a job at a grocery store making around 3.15 I wanna say. Also worked as a "gopher" at a construction site {cowboys, cimmaron steak house} at about 16-17 which was 6 bucks an hour 40 hours a week and paid a check with no taxes taken out which was 240 a week. Entered the USMC at 17 and the base pay was im gonna say around 4-500 a month.

[zookeeper]

My job in college was at a nationwide printer. It was a union shop (International Typographical Union of America) and my starting wage was based on a negotiated contract between the ITU and the labor relations people at the main company headquarters.. It was $5.75 in 1979. But it was a good company and we had good union leadership. Today the ITU is a part of the CWA, and they are a shadow of their former self with so-called "Right-To-Work" laws and elimination of the law that forbade replacement workers (which, frankly, only left organized labor alive as a union in name only and no clout). Ironically, a few years after I left my job, Ronald Reagan was chastising Poland for a "lack of free trade unions" and claimed that was THE marker for a democracy. The company I worked for made a lot of money, but it was also a day when many employers understood the fairness of a balance between labor and capital. That's all gone now in just about every business that was once organized. Everyone is out for themselves in the marketplace and if you want a raise, you go - on your own with no clout- and try to negotiate one-on-one. Good luck with that! Capital runs everything. A year later I took a job for $2.79 an hour in another city, while finishing up my education.

[Dennis Heaton]

zookeeper...what about the babysitting jobs? :-)

[zookeeper]

zookeeper...what about the babysitting jobs? :-)

Excuse me, Dennis, I don't understand your question as I've never babysat in my life. Are you maybe thinking of someone else?

[Dennis Heaton]

I'm sorry...I thought ALL teenage girls babysat in high school (not meaning to sound "sexist"). In other words, I was trying to be a lil bit funny. My bad.

[zookeeper]

I guess my avatar made you think I was a woman. I am very much a man. To avoid confusion, I changed my avatar reflecting my post

[Dennis Heaton]

I guess my avatar made you think I was a woman. I am very much a man. To avoid confusion, I changed my avatar reflecting my post

Oh Shi*! LOL!!!!! First time in my life I mistook a man for a woman! That will NEVER happen again!

[zookeeper]

Oh Shi*! LOL!!!!! First time in my life I mistook a man for a woman! That will NEVER happen again!

It's okay, the avatar would have thrown anyone. It never really hit me until your comment. It's okay, no offense taken.

[PennyQuilts]

You guys crack me up. Zookeeper, he paid you a compliment!

I was paid $1.25 an hour in 1973 as a cashier at Shepherd Twin Theater. Sold a lot of popcorn and watched a lot of movies for free. When they showed the Exorcist, they actually brought in a nurse to sit at a little table wearing a little white nurse's uniform. She dealt with people getting the vapors from the associated hysteria. When they bumped me up to $1.35 I was so proud.

[OKCDrummer77]

Sacked groceries at United Supermarket in Enid for $4.25 starting in 1993. They gave automatic 25 cent raises for every 1040 hours worked. I had two of those under my belt when minimum wage went to $4.75 on its way to $5.15. I was not given a raise to compensate for that, so when I left that job in the summer of 1998, I still made minimum wage ($5.15).

[Jim Kyle]

My first job was part-time retail sales at Oklahoma Photo Supply, 315 N. Broadway, and it paid me 50 cents an hour plus commission on certain items. That was enough to pay for my first professional camera, a 4x5 Speed Graphic -- bought from the same location (the job was arranged to let me work to pay for it). I was in high school at the time -- 1947.

[windowphobe]

I made $1.95 at Mickey D's in 1971, which, if I remember correctly, was 20 cents above the minimum of the moment.

In 1972 as an Army private, I made something like $288 a month.

[Dennis Heaton]

I enlisted in the Air Force in January of 1973.

Historical Military Pay Rates | Military.com

[zookeeper]

You guys crack me up. Zookeeper, he paid you a compliment!

I was paid $1.25 an hour in 1973 as a cashier at Shepherd Twin Theater. Sold a lot of popcorn and watched a lot of movies for free. When they showed the Exorcist, they actually brought in a nurse to sit at a little table wearing a little white nurse's uniform. She dealt with people getting the vapors from the associated hysteria. When they bumped me up to $1.35 I was so proud.

I think I spent half my teenage years at the Shepherd Twin! Was George Gaughan the manager when you worked there? He actually owned the Continental in OKC, Denver and Tulsa. But for some reason, I also want to place him involved at Shepherd Twin during that time.