"I Made $5 A Day": Older Adults Are Recalling How Much They Got Paid At Their First Jobs, And My Jaw Is On The Floor
In 2001, my little 16-year-old self got a job at a movie theater making $6.25 an hour selling popcorn. 23 years later, it doesn't sound like much, but back then, it felt like kind of a lot. So when I came across this Reddit thread of people born before 1980 sharing how much they got paid at their first jobs, I was absolutely fascinated by what they had to say. Here are some of the top comments:
1."I was a carhop at A&W Root Beer stand, complete with the little apron to make change and carrying the tray that hooked onto their partially rolled down the car window. 50 cents an hour, plus tips, which were usually a dime or 15 cents. Oh, we also got 50 cents credit for a free meal during our shift."
2."I made $5 a day in the family business. I was 11 and only worked on Saturday."
3."I made 75 cents an hour in 1969-70 cleaning motel units. 50 cents an hour in the years before that babysitting."
4."About 1973, I washed dishes at a place like a Perkins or I-Hop. I think I started at about 60 cents/hour. I remember HIGH FIVING with a co-worker when we both got raises to 90 cents! BAM! We were kickin' ass!"
5."I made $3.50 at my first-ever job. 15 cents over minimum wage! This was in February 1985."
6."$1.75 an hour, and I thought I was Bill Gates. I worked for an insurance company for a few hours every day after school. I got that job after a 5-minute interview, and I was hired on the spot! Try that today! I didn't even know what a résumé was back then. After I graduated high school, they hired me full-time. This was way before the Internet took over our lives."
7."$1.85, Dairy Queen, 1979."
8."60 cents per hour as kitchen help in the 1960s."
9."My first job was in the late ’70s. A small little North Jersey tee shirt shop. It was a place with a big iron and lots of band logos and pictures that were transferred to the shirts. I worked there at 15/16 years old. I got paid: All the mistake shirts that fit me that I wanted to keep. That was probably one or two shirts a week, most of which had minor flaws that were hardly noticeable. I graduated high school with a collection of at least a hundred tees. Whatever tips or 'keep the change' that people left. Whatever candy or chips or pizza or whatever other munchies my boss had around. And there were always some snacks around. For a 15/16-year-old boy working after school, that was VERY important! Every once in a while, someone would give me a joint or two, a chunk of hash (very popular in those days!), a couple beers, or even a Quaalude or two (also very popular in those days!) Again, important stuff for a 15/16-year-old Jersey boy in the late '70s."
"Speaking of drugs: one afternoon, a dude came in and wanted a bunch of shirts for the band he was managing. They were English and doing their first van tour of the U.S. As a tip, he gave me $20, a huge chunk of hash, and a joint. He said that we would hear his band’s first U.S. single on the radio soon — 'Roxanne.'
I also got passes to three or four trade shows in Manhattan (1/2 hour bus ride from home) where, as a 15/16-year-old representative of a store catering to customers my own age… well, I walked away from each of those shows with as much swag as I could carry.
I also got paid an occasional $20 when we had a good week, $100 at Christmas time, and they threw me a big party when I turned 16.
What did that work out to per hour? I don’t know, and I didn’t really care at the time. I lived with my parents, I had fun, I learned a lot. And that experience made me have high expectations for every job I’ve had since. That’s worked out pretty well for me."
10."$2.85 at McDonald's in 1979 in Sunshine Mall in Anchorage, Alaska. I had to get a job. My parents were trash. I was 12. I was the oldest child of five. We were starving. I was able to smudge my birth certificate and use a typewriter at the library to replace the last two numbers of my birth year. Then I made copies and put them in the dryer with a shoe to make it look old. That little trick made me 14. I worked there for seven months, first part-time and going to school. Then full-time in the summer. Then school started back up. I used that birth certificate for years to get ahead. Then, I got my first office job and never looked back at fast food."
11."Became an x-ray tech in 1978 and got hired at $6.00 an hour! I’d watch the clock click each minute and think, 'There’s another dime.' Lol."
12."My next-door neighbor, born 1915, told me his first real job at age 20 paid $60 a MONTH, working 10-hour days and 6-day weeks. And he said, 'We were living high on the hog on that' after the Depression. He was a printer's apprentice. He started paying into Social Security about that time — fast forward to 1976, he retired onto SS and lived another 41 years; he figured it out, and he got about half a million more from SS than he put in."
13."First job ever? I made $5.00 a week delivering 50 newspapers on a 1-1/2 mile route. First 'real' job? $2.65/hr. Stayed with that company for over 30 years."
14."I remember minimum wage was $2.90 when I started, and then President Carter bumped it to $3.15 and then $3.35. I continued working minimum wage jobs in college, and thanks to President Reagan, the fucking minimum wage never budged above $3.35."
15."I got a summer job working at an auto parts warehouse, pulling orders and stocking shelves. Unfortunately, the owner was my dad, so I made $1/hr. The next summer, with all my knowledge gained of the auto parts warehouse game, my wage was increased to $1.10/hr. The following summer, I wised up and switched industries. I retrained for a better job during the school year. Got my Red Cross Advanced Lifesaving certificate and got a job at Wet-n-Wild in Orlando. Nearly tripled my pay to $3.15/hr, but the fringe benefits were worth a lot more than that!! For those interested, $1.00 in 1978 is now worth $4.83."
16."$1.25 an hour in 1963 mowing grass at a golf course. I was 16 years old."
17."$2.50, minimum wage in 1977 (I was still in high school, so part-time and summers). My first full-time job after graduating college was a whopping $16K per year."
18."$2.30 for walking down rows of corn pulling off the tassels starting at 5:30 in the morning until about 2:30 p.m. We were excited because they paid us for half of the bus ride out to the farms where we had to do this. But that was 1977. lol. I was 11 years old, and I would work until the pay period ended, knowing that when I gave them my Social Security number, I wouldn’t be able to work anymore because I was underage. And then I would go onto the next crew and work for two weeks, repeat two more times and summer was over."
19."1956, gas station attendant, age 15, $.50/hr. Shell khaki uniform including cap freshly pressed each day. Checked the oil, battery, radiator, tire pressure, and belt tensions, and washed the outside of every window of every customer that bought even $1 of gas. Dispensed S&H Green stamps with each purchase."
20."My first job in high school, 1970. The owner thought he could get away with paying me $1/hour when the minimum wage was $1.65. When the labor commissioner investigated him for some other violations, I got fired. I took all my pay stubs to the Employment Development Department, and he had to pay me 65¢ for every hour I had worked. I have been a communist ever since."
21."I got $1.25 an hour working off the books for this wealthy lady. Lawn mowing, pool cleaning, and weeding the garden beds. She would feed me lunch."
22."$4.75 at Blockbuster Video."
23."$1.50 per hour. I was a waitress. California minimum wage was $1.65, but we were paid less because we got tips. California eventually said we were entitled to $1.65, so the restaurant fired all the busboys because they couldn’t afford them and the extra 15 cents an hour they had to pay us."
24."I was 13, $2.50 an hour (cash) for picking tobacco. It was four hours a day, three days a week during the summer."
How much did you get paid at your first job? Tell us in the comments!
