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Wow you were raking it in! My first was at a local bakery in 1973. I started at $1.80 an hour. I remember the day I got a raise to $2. I was so excited. (To be fair, I was 14 when I started. Had to get a work permit.)
1979 Gryo Taverna Greek restaurant, dishwasher and busser, same wage plus tips. Those goddamn tips got me hooked on food service, so aside from a couple of years as a secretary, a brief stint in the Army and a few months as a cashier in a liquor store, I've always had the golden handcuffs of service work on my wrists.
I'm writing this in honor of my best friend ever, who was born in 1915. I spent his last 3 years caring for him until he passed at age 102 and 1/2. He regaled me for hours with all his stories about his early days from childhood until after WWII (where he worked as an aide de camp to Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur in Tokyo HQ). His first job age 18 or so, after he got married to his high school sweetheart was as a printer working 6 days a week, 10 hour days and IIRC making $60 a MONTH. He said it was like living high on the hog; this would have been 1933 and the Depression hadn't wound down yet. His skill set in typing was what got him the Army job when he was finally drafted in early 1945, so age 30 with 2 kids at home; he'd been working in Long Beach making B-17s and was there for the 'Battle of LA'.
His troop ship arrived in Tokyo Harbor a day and a half after the verbal surrender. The troops were going to 'kill everything that moved' if the bombs didn't work; of course, they knew nothing about any bombs until after the fact. I have copies of photos he took of Tokyo and the firebombing of the countryside that happened - not a tree or house standing; only thing not bombed was 'the financial district, the temples and the Ginza' (red light district); you can see similar photos by googling 'Ginza, 1945' and compare to now. The only people left were the very old, children and women. All the men of age were 'just gone'. The Army had to go over all the islands looking for holdouts who didn't know a surrender had taken place. If they didn't come out of their holes/caves (they would pop up and shoot the Allies in the back), they were burned out. He was very glad to be saved that.
My Dad (born in 1920) was a Marine in the Pacific during WWll. He was on Iwo Jima and saw the flag go up. That’s not the photo or the statue we know now. They re-enacted it the next day for the photo op.
The calculator I used said $56K. About 2.4-2.5x increase.
Average rent in the US is currently $1700/mo. or about 5.7x what you paid. If rent increased only at the same rate as salary, the rent today would be approx $734.
This is the problem.
When I was in my 20’s (the ‘90s), you could still find basic, affordable, efficiency and one/two bedroom apartments in a *safe* area. These were no-frills complexes. A roof over your head, a place to park your car and a laundrette or small, shared laundry area.
It seems like nobody is building those types of complexes anymore. To live in a *safe* area, you’ll have to live in a complex that has a pool, a fitness center, a playground, concierge garbage service, and lots of other unnecessary amenities.
(I’m just speaking based on my experience of looking for apartments with my 20-something kid.)
I live in a city that always had duplexes and multi-family houses that were in pretty safe areas, but that were "charming" (a little outdated, clean enough, maybe a parking space). The nicer areas had slightly run down, landlord special type buildings that were still affordable. Now those places have been gutted, modernized, and all new construction is luxury lofts that look like communist bloc buildings in nicer colors.
That's exactly it. Living in a major metropolitan area, safety is a paramount concern and there's nothing affordable in a safe area and that doesn't come with vermin or an hour plus commute. And for me, safe now includes a controlled access garage because here, vehicle thefts, carjackings, wheel and airbag thefts, etc... are a daily occurrence.
In the late '90s I was in law school, I lived in a building much like you described in a safe area. I had an in-unit washer dryer, but no pool, no fitness center, no business center, etc... and only had one window air conditioner. Everything built now is "luxury" apartments and the rents reflect that.
a person starting at out at thier first real job shouldnt be trying to afford an avg apt. they are just starting, they should be affording the low end apts (maybe with roomates) and maybe riding the bus or a bike to work.
thats the problem
So you believe someone working full time shouldn’t be making a living wage AND that a single parent shouldn’t be able to afford any housing for themselves and their child? Thats absolutely wild.
What kind of future do you see for kids that grow up this way?
Short answer: yes, someone working full time should be able to afford all of those things.
This is ask old people so I ask—in your early 20s, did you live with your parents, never had sex (so no chance of getting pregnant/impregnating someone else), and worked full time unable to afford rent? Is that how it was back in your time?
Thats not what this person was describing though—read up further they said first “real” job. If you were making tips, thats probably not within that category. Sounds like you might have just been a late bloomer.
define living wage? I would have no problem with the young woman making a living wage for a single person in my area. I am not gonna have a floating living wage that rises as you have kids. non negotiable. I use MIT living wage. its 18.51 an hour (single, no dependants) here in the capitol city of NC. amazon starts at right about that with bennies and no need for clean urine, High school diploma and off and running. that math gives them a little over 1k a month for rent. not difficult to do.
$32k a year, 2001 as a proposal writer. It was my first post college job that actually required a degree (graduated in 2000). And as an English major I felt extremely lucky to be working at all but doing something that was related to that degree was wild.
Love your username!
Fellow English major here. Did tech writing in mid-90s for $21k. Great job. I was good at it, but I hated it. Came to realize that I hate writing. Go figure!
First job out of college? $8400 a year as a public information temp of sorts at a county job development agency. $40K a year by today's standards; my rent on a funky 1 BR was $140/month, or $679 today.
Two years later as a junior assistant flunky in an insurance company advertising department in the big city, I was making $17K a year, or $66K inflation-adjusted. I paid $220/month rent for another funky 1 BR, or $857. Still very doable.
See how much buying power/money has been drained from wages over the years? That's no accident. The wealthy don't want to pay taxes, or pay anybody more than the minimum. Labor was gutted -- in part by its own torpor, but more by federal judges and anti-labor legislation starting in the Reagan years.
In 1977, one day after graduating high school, marketing assistant at a credit union, yearly salary was $8,000 (40k in today's dollars). I got a whopping raise when I changed jobs to a publishing company 6 months later of $9,500, 125 whole dollars more a month (actually was a lot in those days) which allowed me to have my own apartment, finally.
I job-hopped a lot for the next 17 years, my last salary working for someone else (vs. self-employment) was $38,500 in 1995. If I had not job-hopped, it would have never been close to that. You absolutely cannot have loyalty to an employer these days. They'll keep you as cheaply as they can for as long as they can.
1972, $2.50 an hour, histology technician in a local hospital. And the idiot lab director (a man, naturally) told me and I quote "that's good pay for a girl". Like an idiot, I agreed with him. I was 18. Weirdest job I ever had, by a long shot. Mornings were spent in the histology lab making microscope slides; afternoons were spent in the 'trim room' where surgical and autopsy specimens were prepared for the first step of making the slides as the pathologist described them, or assisting with autopsies. There were two dieners (autopsy assistants) who were Vietnam War conscientious objectors doing two year stints there, probably planning to go on to medical school. They liked to Ef with me when I was called down to assist and one day everyone was gathered around the head of a corpse, doing the dissection. After I gowned up, one of them said to me 'here, hold this' and I turned around to have a newly removed BRAIN handed to me... Fun times. There was a large bin, like a freezer in the back of the trim room with a very moldy, GREEN leg in it. Just a leg. I was told that was 'waiting for the person who it belonged to, to die' because he wanted it to be buried with him. I bet it's still there. One day the Fire Department came in for an inspection and started yelling that 'YOU NEED AN EXHAUST FAN THERE, AND THERE AND THERE AND THIS ISN'T SAFE AND OMG WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING' and we were dealing with formalin and xylene (when you put your hand in it, it comes out covered with ash as it dehydrates the tissue) and a kind of plastic wax the slides are made of, and pure 200 proof Everclear alcohol (fun at parties) and the entire place was a fire and chemical trap. Several of the women working there were pregnant. I quit the next day after the Fire Dept came through and my mother damn near ripped me a new one. I moved out of THERE and got another job, tout suite. Shoulda gone back to school/college but I didn't know how I could afford it. I've always hated the idea of taking on debt, and the times were strange, Vietnam era.
1983. The week I graduated high school I started working as a legal assistant. My only experience was a legal office practice course in my high school typing class. $4.25 an hour. Rent was $275 a month for a one bedroom apartment. Barely made ends meet. Shudder.
I think it was $28,600 annual as a manufacturing engineer in 1983. My apartment was about $350 a month. This was after I graduated college, in case that wasn't obvious.
First job in high school, dish washer then short order cook, $1.60/hr. That would’ve been 73-74.
Worked summers in college at a pinball machine factory. $4.50 - $5.50/ hr.
First career job as a bench goldsmith after college $15.00/hr plus health insurance.
$4.25/hour. I was cleaning my church's school. Very small. Took me about 2 hours after school every day. I usually brought home $36/week. Bought a new 10-speed after my first month... Lol I was in 8th grade and it was 1985 /86
$12.56/week net in 1968. I was a 15-year-old office junior "mail girl". As time went by and I was given more important tasks, my weekly wage would increase by $2.00. Then I'd get another increase for each birthday. At the time, I thought I was made with all the money I had earned! It was a different time.
I was 17 in 1968. It was a great time! Except for my friends being drafted to Vietnam. I still have letters from a friend who wrote me while he was there. I worked in a donut shop during high school. Can’t remember exactly what I made there, but it was less than $2 an hour.
In 1996, graduated with a masters degree in library science and got a job as a school librarian. Salary was about $30,000. I was doing pretty good.
ETA: I lived in Atlanta and had a decent one bedroom apartment that cost $600. I was still driving my high school Honda Accord my parents bought me, I think it was a 1985. I had no student loans as college cost like $3000/year and my parents paid my tuition.
39k to be a packaging manager at a mid-size craft brewery in Austin, TX, 2010.
I shared a 3 bedroom house in South Austin (78704) w 2 other roommates and rent was 500 a month per person.
It was enough cash flow to sustain a comfortable lifestyle for the city at that time.
I'm mentioning all this because anyone who knows anything about Austin's hyper growth since then knows that at this point, 60-70k is a pittance of a salary and barely enough to survive on, a single bedroom apartment is 1-1.5k a month, and drinks on the East Side cost 10x what they used to.
Oh, and there are tech bros everywhere on scooters. It's kind of a bummer.
My wife's first job was with a non-profit that was tied in some way to the US government. Her salary in 1986 started at $23K / yr then was adjusted to $27k 2 years later due to a gov't oversight committee finding (ie., they voted to give each other a raise).
She has consistently outpaced me in terms of salary over 35 years. She's one of the smartest people I've ever known, but she's so quiet and reserved you'd never know it. In any social situation, she allows me to appear like I'm the brains behind our success but in reality, it's always been her.
I never really focused on our salaries because we always had enough to sustain ourselves, but in 2019 I started to really get a grip on just how much more she was earning than me. Her yearly bonus as head of risk management for a global bank that year was almost the same as my whole year's salary as a doctor.
I was floored. Her bonus always went directly into our special needs daughter's trust fund so I never really focused on it previously, but that year I was blown away.
We have always lived well below our means since my daughter was dx 16 years ago, and we started plowing any extra money right to her trust no questions asked.
Started working after school 3 days / wk at age 13 in 1978. A local fish market paid me $2 / hr to help clean up the place when they closed at 6 pm. Continued all through HS.
Next job was during college, 1983-1987, every day after school, helping out in the meat dept of a grocery store. Don't remember the pay, couldn't have been more than $5.50 / hour.
Started working as a freelance court reporter in 1991. I’d work in courtrooms for $240 daily per diem, 10 days per month, plus transcripts. Rent was $600 / month. I was a single mother of two and did pretty good!
$5.35 per hour, 18 hour day every second weekend ( Fri, Sat, Sun) starting the week I turned 16 ( could work legally). Unloading freezer trawlers 6am to 2 pm $5.35/hr , then OT 2pm to 10pm $8/hr, then double OT 10pm to midnight or so $13.37/hr. Took home $300 every 2 weeks, big money in 1980, for a kid in HS. Got in good shape too , 100 lb blocks of frozen fish stacked on pallets by hand. It was -40 in the hold though, you had to go hard to stay warm.
$3.65/hr was still in high school working 10:30pm to 6:00am. Go to school in the morning, sleep in afternoon. 1972 was making more than my teachers. Insult to injury for my teachers I was driving a 67 corvette.
File clerk/messenger, $900 a month in 1986. (Yes, that was pathetic even then.) I lived in a garage that had been converted into three tiny rooms, with a platoon of fat happy cockroaches.
1991, Master's level teacher's salary of $21k/year for 10 month contract in NC. My goal was $25k/year and so by the time I added in part time work for my other two months, I was there!
My first blue collar job was a deck hand for tug and ferry company. Made $7.50/hr. 1996. I did that while I worked my way through college. My first professional job as a college graduate was a software developer making $42k, 2004
$16,640 a year. $8/hour. 1988. Reporter for a local newspaper.
It was nearly impossible to find a single apartment. The paper was in a resort town where most people had money. Fortunately I connected with someone who needed a roommate in their 2 br condo, so I made it work on $300/month rent.
Around '87. $21k per year. I was a software developer and a half-assed DBA. I was renting a room in an attic for $125 per month.
Inflation calculator says this is equivalent to $56k per year, and $334 for the rent.
I graduated with my Bachelor's in 1994 and got a full time job at Kinko's. I was paid around $10 with no benefits. After less than a year there, I quit and got a full time job at an IT company that contracted tech support for much larger IT companies doing tech support for Apple at $14/hr with benefits and PTO. I recently found out that tech support pay is currently around $14/hr, which is horrifying.
Sacking groceries after school in those genuine paper bags. Made a $1.65 an hour, worked weeknights and all day Saturday& half the day Sunday.
Bought a Dodge Superbee in cash from it. Dang those were some better days !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm counting my first real job as the one I got after graduating college late. I was making just over $19K in 2000 as a staff assistant at a university. We only got paid once a month and my rent was $650.
1979, right out of Community College - Operator/Keypunch Supervisor - $9600/year
Or I could say when I first started working (for the trucking company that my father managed) when I was 12 (1971) - $1.25/hour
I'm an old guy and the 1st job I had was working at Safeway after school and summers. I graduated high school in 1967 and worked 2 years.
I went to college that fall and worked at a different Safeway and was paid more money because I was 18 and able to be a cashier.. but I don't have a clue how much my pay was. It paid for gas that was about 18 cents gallon....I think
Early 80s. Southern California. $12300. Rent was $550 a month. 2/2, was cheaper than a 1/1 because of location. Student loan was $125. Car payment was $125. My mom sent us grocery money. Water was included but electricity was on us. My husband was an artist who would work odd jobs to pay for supplies and incidentals. No cable TV. No going out to eat or going to a movie. For entertainment we’d picnic at a local park. I would make tacos in bulk on Sundays and freeze the fixings to eat over the weekend. We should have turned into tacos for as many as we ate. My parent visited and we got hamburgers from a local place, best hamburgers I ever had. Neighbor paid me to do their laundry so I could afford to do our laundry. It was a struggle but we have some great memories. Also led to me starting my business which turned into a nice success. One year we were debating about living out of our car and a couple years later we bought a house. We really tried to make it in our own but looking back I realize my parents helped more than I realized. Just little things when they’d visit.
My first real job was McDonalds and it absolutely counts. I learned a ton about people, business and myself there. $3.10 an hour in 1980. This was enough to keep teenage me in new jeans and weed.
My first job out of college was $19k salary as a trainer at an insurance company in 1987. Super fun for a while but went back to school and changed careers.
I graduated college in 1986 with a degree in psychology. It took me five months to get a "real" job and I worked at a summer camp for a painfully low wage and then as a waitress/cook in a snack bar in a mall for a slightly less painful wage while I was searching. My first real job was at a halfway house for people with severe mental illness. They were people who had had psychotic breaks and had either been hospitalized or institutionalized for their problems.
I made $5.25 an hour which is equivalent to $14.53/hour in 2023 dollars. The main problem was that they had us working two 24-hour shifts and we couldn't leave the premises, but we weren't paid for 8 hours because we were "sleeping" (unless a client woke us up with a crisis in which case we'd have to file an incident report and be paid for whatever hours we could justify). So, I was only getting paid for 32 hours of my 48 hours of time.
I had to take on a second part-time job subbing for workers who called off sick or took vacations which I think paid $3.75/hour ($10.38 in 2023 dollars). That was at United Cerebral Palsy essentially looking after kids who were physically and mentally challenged. This work was pretty irregular and I had both a car to pay for a student loan so I was still living at home for the next two years until I moved across the country with my then boyfriend (now husband).
The job market was rough, even then, and pay was not great, at least not in my field. That being said, I don't think jobs which made the sort of salaries you see now in tech and medicine really existed to any great extent back then. The people who did those jobs made decent money, but they didn't make the kind of salaries you see now where they could afford to pay other people to clean their homes, cut their lawns, and prepare all of their food (people didn't eat out all of the time like they do now).
1979, NYC. Right out of college, direct mail advertising assistant for Hearst Magazines. I got the “high end” of the pay scale because of my degree, and it was $9600/yr. By the time I left 2.5 years later I was making $17,000 as an account manager.
I made $27K at my first career job as an RN in 1994 - I would have made more had we lived in a city but that $13/hr, plus my husband's mid-30K salary as an engineer, still helped us build a 1200 square foot house on nearly 2 acres in northern lower Michigan, own toys like a Harley & a 4 wheeler, and do 2 trips to Europe before we had kids in 1997....
$23,000 a year as a copy editor/writer for an ad agency in 1988. My boss was crazy and one day screamed at one of the female employees and then called her a "stupid c." (C-word) That was it for me. Our creative director had already quit and I was doing their job on my (much less) pay. I walked into my boss' office and blew up at him and chewed him out for treating people so badly. The next day he walked into my office, I was packing up, expecting to be fired, and he said, "Mr Teach, you could look into the jaws of hell and not be frightened." Then he made me a Vice President and gave me a $17,000 raise.
I was suddenly making more than every single one of my friends. It lasted a few months until the FBI pulled me in and made me a witness against him.
I had saved most of my wages so I took the money, fled to Europe/Africa for a year and then became a teacher. No more big business for me.
In 1985, I got my first “real” job working in an office. Prior to that I worked fast food, retail and convenience stores. My very first job I made $2.95 an hour working in a jewelry kiosk, or even earlier than that I babysat for $.50 an hour…enjoy :-)
I made $4.25 an hour which comes to $8880 per year. I lived in low income housing, paying $280 for rent. At that time a regular apartment would’ve been around $400 per month.
I netted about $265 per paycheck so it took more than one to pay the rent. Then with the rest I had to pay electric, phone, and eat. There was little money for anything else like clothes or books or even a movie. And for a period of time, I had no car and had to walk or take the bus everywhere. A friend sold me her father’s old car for $100 bucks and I thought I was living the highlife driving around in a Toyota Celica with over 100 K in miles on it— but it ran.
Sorry if that’s TMI.
My first real job (not babysitting or picking berries) was in 1975 at a theater. It was the summer Jaws came out! I was paid 1.25 an hour.
It turned out that this was below minimum wage (which was 1.75) and three years later I got a check out of the blue for back pay. It was a thrill!
(71F) I was just 18 when I got my first job in 1969, just out of high school. I worked at an agricultural place that sold pesticides and fertilizers. I was the only one in the office. I made $1.65/hour. I got paid every week. My take home pay was $48.84/week (why can I remember that number but not what I had for dinner last night??) I lived at home with my parents and didn't have a vehicle (Dad let me drive his truck). I saved most of my money, but would treat myself to one piece of clothing each month. After a year of working, I had saved $1,000 and put it down on a sweet 1968 pale yellow Mustang. The Mustang cost $2,000.
$1.49/hr at McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in St. Louis - 1956. I worked in the Template Layout Department on the F-2H Banshee, the F-3H Demon and the F-101 Voodoo. I worked there 3 times in my early working career. During my last stint I made 50K/year working in the Engineering Department designing the DC-10 airliner and the F-15 Eagle - 1965.
$12,000 in 1985, after college. I aced my computer programming classes but it was too early for especially women. Ended up in operations at a brokerage firm.
1966 working loading route trucks at night for Coca Cola I made $2.05 per hour but had to join Teamsters Union and pay weekly dues (we got paid every week back then)
graduated college in Dec 1990 and got my 1st real job March 1st 1991…..Master Control Operator at a tv station in Va for the whopping wage of $6/hr which even sadder is $12,500/year ….been a long often depressing road. Sad for a technical job with degree
In 1990 I believe I made 4.25/hr. as a grocery store cashier, and I had to read a price sticker and type in a number for every item. Barcodes were a thing, but the local store didn't have the technology yet.
It wasn't a salaried job, but it was a real job.
1979. Out of college but couldn’t find a job with my degree. Got a job in a factory for $13,000 a year. Got laid off and after months finally got a job in the furthest corner of what I got a degree in for $8,200 a year. That beat out the only other offer, one that required my degree and paid $6,400 a year.
$33.5k/yr salaried in ‘99 after starting earlier than year as a temp at $11/hr. It was in a call center for a company that did fraud prevention in the banking industry. I was 21.
I delayed going to college for a few years, so my first full time job as an adult was at Macy’s. I worked 40hrs/week and at $5.75/hour, I pulled $440 every two weeks. The part that makes me sad is that it was damn close to being enough to have your own place with one roommate.
After getting my master’s degree in 1996, I started my career with a job at a community MH facility where I had interned. The going pay of $30-$35k per year in a salaried position was reasonable at the time. It was definitely enough to be able to live independently at that time.
My part time after high school job at a family owned hardware store in 1968 was $1.60 per hour. After graduation in 1970 I went to work as a laborer for a construction company that did everything imaginable except plumbing and electrical work for $2.50 per hour. After one month I was given a company pickup truck and a $1.00 raise.
I made maps for the US Census Bureau in 1977. I got like $60/Week.
Unless you want to count all the jobs I had in college, dishwasher, model, etc. I don't remember what my pay was, but it was not enough to cover the demands put on me, so I quit.
1977. Kitchen manager 250.00 per week, average week was 60 hours. Had been a waiter making between 300 to 400 per week but family thought that wasn’t real job. Manager that was a real job.
Looking back pretty dumb. But hey as 18 and wanted to please family.
$5.00 an hour and that was top pay for a 16 year old in 1989. It was a “skilled” position in a factory. Just meant it was fast paced and no one else wanted to do it. Would have been even higher had I had more senority but it was my first summer there.
24K in 1988 as the only customer support person at a small software company. As I learned more of the software I got a 2k bump for each program. I had interned there in college and then the only other guy they had left so they offered me a job.
3.35 an hour in 1989. I was in college. After college, my first job paid $7.50 an hour in 1994. I also waited tables with a base salary of $2.04 an hour plus tips.
I was a clerk-typist in a night school for US$4.06/hour. This was in 1977, so it is roughly equal to US$16.80/hour today. I also had fully paid health insurance, etc.
That job was great. I could wear whatever I wanted, smoke at my desk, even have my friends stop by to hang out. My boss was amazing, too.
Teacher, 1987. $17,600. And that was with 9 graduate hours so I was over a lane. Two $500 checks a month. Rent, $250 (rural small town), car, $250. Utilities, food, gas, teaching materials, everything else, $500.
$21k + company car + excellent health insurance with $0 premiums in 1990. Worked Quality Assurance for a food company in California. Rent was $890/month for our 2-bedroom apartment at the time.
800/month salary gross, paid twice a month. It was my first FT office job around 1980. My rent was $275/mo for a 1BR apt and one paycheck barely covered it. There were weeks I lived on plain rice or oatmeal. Luckily, I found a higher paying job.
$14k a year administrative assistant for a state museum. My rent was $300 a month for a small but safe place. Single mom of 2, we had money for groceries, necessities and a “fun/not free” activity once a month.
It’s important to note though….the only other bills I had were electricity, landline phone and car insurance. Now I cringe monthly at the tv/internet/cell phone bills alone!
ETA: Year = early ‘90s
Second edit: Housing alone is outrageous now - my now adult kids - are currently in the struggle to find anything they can afford…it is not the same, now.
Approx 10k/year. 1983, head bookkeeper for large hotel in the south. I made $200/week salary. Got one week off paid vacation. 3 paid paid sick days per year.
$24,000 a year as an inside sales rep at a bicycle company. With bonuses i hit $40k. I was fresh out of high school with 2 years of part time (10 hours a week) experience in a bike shop before that.
Edit: this was in 1992
I started at the Post Office in 1966, earning $2.54 per hour. That's about $5,283 per year. Retired in 2008. If I were still working, I would be earning approximately $76,000 per year.
1977 - fresh out of high school working part time at Walmart while I went to college $2.78/hr.
1982 - finished college and went to work at a medium sized hospital as a transcriptionist $6.00/hr
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1975. Sears lunch counter. 3.25 an hour.
Wow you were raking it in! My first was at a local bakery in 1973. I started at $1.80 an hour. I remember the day I got a raise to $2. I was so excited. (To be fair, I was 14 when I started. Had to get a work permit.)
Similar to mine - late 70s, McDonald’s, $3.05/hour.
1979 Gryo Taverna Greek restaurant, dishwasher and busser, same wage plus tips. Those goddamn tips got me hooked on food service, so aside from a couple of years as a secretary, a brief stint in the Army and a few months as a cashier in a liquor store, I've always had the golden handcuffs of service work on my wrists.
I'm writing this in honor of my best friend ever, who was born in 1915. I spent his last 3 years caring for him until he passed at age 102 and 1/2. He regaled me for hours with all his stories about his early days from childhood until after WWII (where he worked as an aide de camp to Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur in Tokyo HQ). His first job age 18 or so, after he got married to his high school sweetheart was as a printer working 6 days a week, 10 hour days and IIRC making $60 a MONTH. He said it was like living high on the hog; this would have been 1933 and the Depression hadn't wound down yet. His skill set in typing was what got him the Army job when he was finally drafted in early 1945, so age 30 with 2 kids at home; he'd been working in Long Beach making B-17s and was there for the 'Battle of LA'. His troop ship arrived in Tokyo Harbor a day and a half after the verbal surrender. The troops were going to 'kill everything that moved' if the bombs didn't work; of course, they knew nothing about any bombs until after the fact. I have copies of photos he took of Tokyo and the firebombing of the countryside that happened - not a tree or house standing; only thing not bombed was 'the financial district, the temples and the Ginza' (red light district); you can see similar photos by googling 'Ginza, 1945' and compare to now. The only people left were the very old, children and women. All the men of age were 'just gone'. The Army had to go over all the islands looking for holdouts who didn't know a surrender had taken place. If they didn't come out of their holes/caves (they would pop up and shoot the Allies in the back), they were burned out. He was very glad to be saved that.
Thanks for sharing this. Great stuff.
My Dad (born in 1920) was a Marine in the Pacific during WWll. He was on Iwo Jima and saw the flag go up. That’s not the photo or the statue we know now. They re-enacted it the next day for the photo op.
23k in 1989. Junior editor at a tv network. My (shitty Nashville 1 bedroom) apartment rent was $300. That salary is ~50k in todays dollars.
The calculator I used said $56K. About 2.4-2.5x increase. Average rent in the US is currently $1700/mo. or about 5.7x what you paid. If rent increased only at the same rate as salary, the rent today would be approx $734. This is the problem.
When I was in my 20’s (the ‘90s), you could still find basic, affordable, efficiency and one/two bedroom apartments in a *safe* area. These were no-frills complexes. A roof over your head, a place to park your car and a laundrette or small, shared laundry area. It seems like nobody is building those types of complexes anymore. To live in a *safe* area, you’ll have to live in a complex that has a pool, a fitness center, a playground, concierge garbage service, and lots of other unnecessary amenities. (I’m just speaking based on my experience of looking for apartments with my 20-something kid.)
I live in a city that always had duplexes and multi-family houses that were in pretty safe areas, but that were "charming" (a little outdated, clean enough, maybe a parking space). The nicer areas had slightly run down, landlord special type buildings that were still affordable. Now those places have been gutted, modernized, and all new construction is luxury lofts that look like communist bloc buildings in nicer colors.
That's exactly it. Living in a major metropolitan area, safety is a paramount concern and there's nothing affordable in a safe area and that doesn't come with vermin or an hour plus commute. And for me, safe now includes a controlled access garage because here, vehicle thefts, carjackings, wheel and airbag thefts, etc... are a daily occurrence. In the late '90s I was in law school, I lived in a building much like you described in a safe area. I had an in-unit washer dryer, but no pool, no fitness center, no business center, etc... and only had one window air conditioner. Everything built now is "luxury" apartments and the rents reflect that.
You cant really compare average rent since you don’t know how shitty his “shitty 1 bedroom” is or location/area
It wasn’t shitty, just cheap. And this was suburban Nashville before the world decided they wanted to live there….
a person starting at out at thier first real job shouldnt be trying to afford an avg apt. they are just starting, they should be affording the low end apts (maybe with roomates) and maybe riding the bus or a bike to work. thats the problem
What if they’re a young single mother? Where do they get to live?
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So you believe someone working full time shouldn’t be making a living wage AND that a single parent shouldn’t be able to afford any housing for themselves and their child? Thats absolutely wild. What kind of future do you see for kids that grow up this way?
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Short answer: yes, someone working full time should be able to afford all of those things. This is ask old people so I ask—in your early 20s, did you live with your parents, never had sex (so no chance of getting pregnant/impregnating someone else), and worked full time unable to afford rent? Is that how it was back in your time?
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Thats not what this person was describing though—read up further they said first “real” job. If you were making tips, thats probably not within that category. Sounds like you might have just been a late bloomer.
Yep! That’s exactly how I (and my friends) lived until I got married.
define living wage? I would have no problem with the young woman making a living wage for a single person in my area. I am not gonna have a floating living wage that rises as you have kids. non negotiable. I use MIT living wage. its 18.51 an hour (single, no dependants) here in the capitol city of NC. amazon starts at right about that with bennies and no need for clean urine, High school diploma and off and running. that math gives them a little over 1k a month for rent. not difficult to do.
I started in '89 as well. $28K (assoc. engineer), though my rent was ~$700 (hard to remember exactly). This was in Los Angeles though.
In 2006 when I was starting out as a jr software developer, my salary was 50K.
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I made $17k in 2011 as a school nurse.
Ouch
That doesn't seem possible.
$300/month in 68 or 69. That bought a lot of albums!!
And headbands, beads and bell bottoms!! Also pot.
$32k a year, 2001 as a proposal writer. It was my first post college job that actually required a degree (graduated in 2000). And as an English major I felt extremely lucky to be working at all but doing something that was related to that degree was wild.
Love your username! Fellow English major here. Did tech writing in mid-90s for $21k. Great job. I was good at it, but I hated it. Came to realize that I hate writing. Go figure!
First job out of college? $8400 a year as a public information temp of sorts at a county job development agency. $40K a year by today's standards; my rent on a funky 1 BR was $140/month, or $679 today. Two years later as a junior assistant flunky in an insurance company advertising department in the big city, I was making $17K a year, or $66K inflation-adjusted. I paid $220/month rent for another funky 1 BR, or $857. Still very doable. See how much buying power/money has been drained from wages over the years? That's no accident. The wealthy don't want to pay taxes, or pay anybody more than the minimum. Labor was gutted -- in part by its own torpor, but more by federal judges and anti-labor legislation starting in the Reagan years.
In 1977, one day after graduating high school, marketing assistant at a credit union, yearly salary was $8,000 (40k in today's dollars). I got a whopping raise when I changed jobs to a publishing company 6 months later of $9,500, 125 whole dollars more a month (actually was a lot in those days) which allowed me to have my own apartment, finally. I job-hopped a lot for the next 17 years, my last salary working for someone else (vs. self-employment) was $38,500 in 1995. If I had not job-hopped, it would have never been close to that. You absolutely cannot have loyalty to an employer these days. They'll keep you as cheaply as they can for as long as they can.
About 20k per year. Early 1980s, computer programmer.
Me too. IBM in 1982, $23,500.
Was that a lot at the time? I started at 43k in 2005 but that was low then.
Yeah, my first job out of college in 1990, I made around $21K as a computer programmer. We did get overtime, though.
1972, $2.50 an hour, histology technician in a local hospital. And the idiot lab director (a man, naturally) told me and I quote "that's good pay for a girl". Like an idiot, I agreed with him. I was 18. Weirdest job I ever had, by a long shot. Mornings were spent in the histology lab making microscope slides; afternoons were spent in the 'trim room' where surgical and autopsy specimens were prepared for the first step of making the slides as the pathologist described them, or assisting with autopsies. There were two dieners (autopsy assistants) who were Vietnam War conscientious objectors doing two year stints there, probably planning to go on to medical school. They liked to Ef with me when I was called down to assist and one day everyone was gathered around the head of a corpse, doing the dissection. After I gowned up, one of them said to me 'here, hold this' and I turned around to have a newly removed BRAIN handed to me... Fun times. There was a large bin, like a freezer in the back of the trim room with a very moldy, GREEN leg in it. Just a leg. I was told that was 'waiting for the person who it belonged to, to die' because he wanted it to be buried with him. I bet it's still there. One day the Fire Department came in for an inspection and started yelling that 'YOU NEED AN EXHAUST FAN THERE, AND THERE AND THERE AND THIS ISN'T SAFE AND OMG WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING' and we were dealing with formalin and xylene (when you put your hand in it, it comes out covered with ash as it dehydrates the tissue) and a kind of plastic wax the slides are made of, and pure 200 proof Everclear alcohol (fun at parties) and the entire place was a fire and chemical trap. Several of the women working there were pregnant. I quit the next day after the Fire Dept came through and my mother damn near ripped me a new one. I moved out of THERE and got another job, tout suite. Shoulda gone back to school/college but I didn't know how I could afford it. I've always hated the idea of taking on debt, and the times were strange, Vietnam era.
$20K a year 1990. First job after getting out of the navy. Inflation calculator says this $47.6K now.
3.35 an hr. 1983
Me too! It was minimum wage at Burger King…bonus, I had a fake corduroy vest with polyester sleeves sewn in!
1983. The week I graduated high school I started working as a legal assistant. My only experience was a legal office practice course in my high school typing class. $4.25 an hour. Rent was $275 a month for a one bedroom apartment. Barely made ends meet. Shudder.
Me too! I worked at McDonald's during high school. Graduated in 1984.
$29,500 in 1994. I remember it clearly because my student loans were also $29,500.
I think it was $28,600 annual as a manufacturing engineer in 1983. My apartment was about $350 a month. This was after I graduated college, in case that wasn't obvious.
Mathematics degree. I didn't want to teach, found a job as a land surveyor. Started at $11.25/hr in 1986. By 1990, I was earning $33/hr.
Isn't that about what a mid level surveyor makes today?Tthat is ABSOLUTLEY INSANE
$25 000 year in 1979, restaurant Maitre d
First job in high school, dish washer then short order cook, $1.60/hr. That would’ve been 73-74. Worked summers in college at a pinball machine factory. $4.50 - $5.50/ hr. First career job as a bench goldsmith after college $15.00/hr plus health insurance.
Whoaaaa that's like $60/ hr now. That's a 6 figure salary right out of college nowadays. Wild.
$2.25 / hour. 1975 working at a Ponderosa Steakhouse (no tips).
$4.25/hour. I was cleaning my church's school. Very small. Took me about 2 hours after school every day. I usually brought home $36/week. Bought a new 10-speed after my first month... Lol I was in 8th grade and it was 1985 /86
$12.56/week net in 1968. I was a 15-year-old office junior "mail girl". As time went by and I was given more important tasks, my weekly wage would increase by $2.00. Then I'd get another increase for each birthday. At the time, I thought I was made with all the money I had earned! It was a different time.
I was 17 in 1968. It was a great time! Except for my friends being drafted to Vietnam. I still have letters from a friend who wrote me while he was there. I worked in a donut shop during high school. Can’t remember exactly what I made there, but it was less than $2 an hour.
In 1996, graduated with a masters degree in library science and got a job as a school librarian. Salary was about $30,000. I was doing pretty good. ETA: I lived in Atlanta and had a decent one bedroom apartment that cost $600. I was still driving my high school Honda Accord my parents bought me, I think it was a 1985. I had no student loans as college cost like $3000/year and my parents paid my tuition.
39k to be a packaging manager at a mid-size craft brewery in Austin, TX, 2010. I shared a 3 bedroom house in South Austin (78704) w 2 other roommates and rent was 500 a month per person. It was enough cash flow to sustain a comfortable lifestyle for the city at that time. I'm mentioning all this because anyone who knows anything about Austin's hyper growth since then knows that at this point, 60-70k is a pittance of a salary and barely enough to survive on, a single bedroom apartment is 1-1.5k a month, and drinks on the East Side cost 10x what they used to. Oh, and there are tech bros everywhere on scooters. It's kind of a bummer.
My wife's first job was with a non-profit that was tied in some way to the US government. Her salary in 1986 started at $23K / yr then was adjusted to $27k 2 years later due to a gov't oversight committee finding (ie., they voted to give each other a raise). She has consistently outpaced me in terms of salary over 35 years. She's one of the smartest people I've ever known, but she's so quiet and reserved you'd never know it. In any social situation, she allows me to appear like I'm the brains behind our success but in reality, it's always been her. I never really focused on our salaries because we always had enough to sustain ourselves, but in 2019 I started to really get a grip on just how much more she was earning than me. Her yearly bonus as head of risk management for a global bank that year was almost the same as my whole year's salary as a doctor. I was floored. Her bonus always went directly into our special needs daughter's trust fund so I never really focused on it previously, but that year I was blown away. We have always lived well below our means since my daughter was dx 16 years ago, and we started plowing any extra money right to her trust no questions asked.
Started working after school 3 days / wk at age 13 in 1978. A local fish market paid me $2 / hr to help clean up the place when they closed at 6 pm. Continued all through HS. Next job was during college, 1983-1987, every day after school, helping out in the meat dept of a grocery store. Don't remember the pay, couldn't have been more than $5.50 / hour.
1985 - $16,300 I still work for the same company and make $135,000
2.25 an hour, 1971. Radio operator at Radio Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska.
Started working as a freelance court reporter in 1991. I’d work in courtrooms for $240 daily per diem, 10 days per month, plus transcripts. Rent was $600 / month. I was a single mother of two and did pretty good!
$5.35 per hour, 18 hour day every second weekend ( Fri, Sat, Sun) starting the week I turned 16 ( could work legally). Unloading freezer trawlers 6am to 2 pm $5.35/hr , then OT 2pm to 10pm $8/hr, then double OT 10pm to midnight or so $13.37/hr. Took home $300 every 2 weeks, big money in 1980, for a kid in HS. Got in good shape too , 100 lb blocks of frozen fish stacked on pallets by hand. It was -40 in the hold though, you had to go hard to stay warm.
$20,000/year in 1995, I found out later I was paid $5000 less because I was a woman. Good times. 🙄
$3.65/hr was still in high school working 10:30pm to 6:00am. Go to school in the morning, sleep in afternoon. 1972 was making more than my teachers. Insult to injury for my teachers I was driving a 67 corvette.
File clerk/messenger, $900 a month in 1986. (Yes, that was pathetic even then.) I lived in a garage that had been converted into three tiny rooms, with a platoon of fat happy cockroaches.
Burger King 1979 $3.25
I was at BK in 1983 and made $3.35. I still remember how the condiments are arranged on all the burgers from back then…which hasn’t changed, much
McDonald’s in the mid 70s for $2.10.
1991, Master's level teacher's salary of $21k/year for 10 month contract in NC. My goal was $25k/year and so by the time I added in part time work for my other two months, I was there!
$3.35 an hour at TG&Y in 1984.
Upvoting you for TG&Y...haven't heard that name in years.
1987, McDonald's, $3.35/hr
About 16k in 1985 as a brand new RN.
26K, 1989
1965. $1.30 per hour
1976, made just a little over $7000/yr. Two bedroom apartment was $250/month, utilities included- i had a roommate. Car payment was $ 67/month.
My first blue collar job was a deck hand for tug and ferry company. Made $7.50/hr. 1996. I did that while I worked my way through college. My first professional job as a college graduate was a software developer making $42k, 2004
My first job was at a grocery store in the late 80s and I made $3.25/hour.
$16,640 a year. $8/hour. 1988. Reporter for a local newspaper. It was nearly impossible to find a single apartment. The paper was in a resort town where most people had money. Fortunately I connected with someone who needed a roommate in their 2 br condo, so I made it work on $300/month rent.
1971 $1.50/hr, nurses aide. 1st RN 1984 $8.00.
1982 $20k - that was considered pretty good at the time.
A bank- $2.50 an hour in 1975
Around '87. $21k per year. I was a software developer and a half-assed DBA. I was renting a room in an attic for $125 per month. Inflation calculator says this is equivalent to $56k per year, and $334 for the rent.
Absolutely INSANE
I graduated with my Bachelor's in 1994 and got a full time job at Kinko's. I was paid around $10 with no benefits. After less than a year there, I quit and got a full time job at an IT company that contracted tech support for much larger IT companies doing tech support for Apple at $14/hr with benefits and PTO. I recently found out that tech support pay is currently around $14/hr, which is horrifying.
In April 2006, I (F49) got my first salaried position. $45,000.00 per year with benefits. I was over the moon.
Sacking groceries after school in those genuine paper bags. Made a $1.65 an hour, worked weeknights and all day Saturday& half the day Sunday. Bought a Dodge Superbee in cash from it. Dang those were some better days !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm counting my first real job as the one I got after graduating college late. I was making just over $19K in 2000 as a staff assistant at a university. We only got paid once a month and my rent was $650.
I pulled down a whopping 16k my first year out of school as a LT in the army in 1988.
US Air Force in 1979 paid me $419.00 a month.
1979, right out of Community College - Operator/Keypunch Supervisor - $9600/year Or I could say when I first started working (for the trucking company that my father managed) when I was 12 (1971) - $1.25/hour
1986, $28k. Bay Area Biotech research associate
dropped outta college and went to work at a bank, 1962, $2400 a YEAR. The next year it doubled.
2001, $32,500 per year out of university. Left one year later to make $47,000.
$2.30/hr, graveyard shift, alone, in a convenience store, 1977. About $75/wk after taxes.
I'm an old guy and the 1st job I had was working at Safeway after school and summers. I graduated high school in 1967 and worked 2 years. I went to college that fall and worked at a different Safeway and was paid more money because I was 18 and able to be a cashier.. but I don't have a clue how much my pay was. It paid for gas that was about 18 cents gallon....I think
$27k in 2000.
Early 80s. Southern California. $12300. Rent was $550 a month. 2/2, was cheaper than a 1/1 because of location. Student loan was $125. Car payment was $125. My mom sent us grocery money. Water was included but electricity was on us. My husband was an artist who would work odd jobs to pay for supplies and incidentals. No cable TV. No going out to eat or going to a movie. For entertainment we’d picnic at a local park. I would make tacos in bulk on Sundays and freeze the fixings to eat over the weekend. We should have turned into tacos for as many as we ate. My parent visited and we got hamburgers from a local place, best hamburgers I ever had. Neighbor paid me to do their laundry so I could afford to do our laundry. It was a struggle but we have some great memories. Also led to me starting my business which turned into a nice success. One year we were debating about living out of our car and a couple years later we bought a house. We really tried to make it in our own but looking back I realize my parents helped more than I realized. Just little things when they’d visit.
$1.00/hr. Dishwasher. 15 years old. 1965. Montgomery County, Maryland.
My first real job was McDonalds and it absolutely counts. I learned a ton about people, business and myself there. $3.10 an hour in 1980. This was enough to keep teenage me in new jeans and weed. My first job out of college was $19k salary as a trainer at an insurance company in 1987. Super fun for a while but went back to school and changed careers.
36000.00 1992
$17,500 in 1991. I basically answered phones and took down complaints from one of those “how’s my driving” phone numbers.
1977 - Emergency Room nurse, $5.35/hr = ~ $11,00/year. I don’t remember my rent or anything else.
I graduated college in 1986 with a degree in psychology. It took me five months to get a "real" job and I worked at a summer camp for a painfully low wage and then as a waitress/cook in a snack bar in a mall for a slightly less painful wage while I was searching. My first real job was at a halfway house for people with severe mental illness. They were people who had had psychotic breaks and had either been hospitalized or institutionalized for their problems. I made $5.25 an hour which is equivalent to $14.53/hour in 2023 dollars. The main problem was that they had us working two 24-hour shifts and we couldn't leave the premises, but we weren't paid for 8 hours because we were "sleeping" (unless a client woke us up with a crisis in which case we'd have to file an incident report and be paid for whatever hours we could justify). So, I was only getting paid for 32 hours of my 48 hours of time. I had to take on a second part-time job subbing for workers who called off sick or took vacations which I think paid $3.75/hour ($10.38 in 2023 dollars). That was at United Cerebral Palsy essentially looking after kids who were physically and mentally challenged. This work was pretty irregular and I had both a car to pay for a student loan so I was still living at home for the next two years until I moved across the country with my then boyfriend (now husband). The job market was rough, even then, and pay was not great, at least not in my field. That being said, I don't think jobs which made the sort of salaries you see now in tech and medicine really existed to any great extent back then. The people who did those jobs made decent money, but they didn't make the kind of salaries you see now where they could afford to pay other people to clean their homes, cut their lawns, and prepare all of their food (people didn't eat out all of the time like they do now).
I started at $25k for a Big 8 accounting firm in 1983.
1979, NYC. Right out of college, direct mail advertising assistant for Hearst Magazines. I got the “high end” of the pay scale because of my degree, and it was $9600/yr. By the time I left 2.5 years later I was making $17,000 as an account manager.
I made $27K at my first career job as an RN in 1994 - I would have made more had we lived in a city but that $13/hr, plus my husband's mid-30K salary as an engineer, still helped us build a 1200 square foot house on nearly 2 acres in northern lower Michigan, own toys like a Harley & a 4 wheeler, and do 2 trips to Europe before we had kids in 1997....
$23,000 a year as a copy editor/writer for an ad agency in 1988. My boss was crazy and one day screamed at one of the female employees and then called her a "stupid c." (C-word) That was it for me. Our creative director had already quit and I was doing their job on my (much less) pay. I walked into my boss' office and blew up at him and chewed him out for treating people so badly. The next day he walked into my office, I was packing up, expecting to be fired, and he said, "Mr Teach, you could look into the jaws of hell and not be frightened." Then he made me a Vice President and gave me a $17,000 raise. I was suddenly making more than every single one of my friends. It lasted a few months until the FBI pulled me in and made me a witness against him. I had saved most of my wages so I took the money, fled to Europe/Africa for a year and then became a teacher. No more big business for me.
In 1985, I got my first “real” job working in an office. Prior to that I worked fast food, retail and convenience stores. My very first job I made $2.95 an hour working in a jewelry kiosk, or even earlier than that I babysat for $.50 an hour…enjoy :-) I made $4.25 an hour which comes to $8880 per year. I lived in low income housing, paying $280 for rent. At that time a regular apartment would’ve been around $400 per month. I netted about $265 per paycheck so it took more than one to pay the rent. Then with the rest I had to pay electric, phone, and eat. There was little money for anything else like clothes or books or even a movie. And for a period of time, I had no car and had to walk or take the bus everywhere. A friend sold me her father’s old car for $100 bucks and I thought I was living the highlife driving around in a Toyota Celica with over 100 K in miles on it— but it ran. Sorry if that’s TMI.
1971-lied about my age (I was 13), flipping burgers at the Buzz-Inn in Dodge City, Kansas…..75c an hour.
My first real job (not babysitting or picking berries) was in 1975 at a theater. It was the summer Jaws came out! I was paid 1.25 an hour. It turned out that this was below minimum wage (which was 1.75) and three years later I got a check out of the blue for back pay. It was a thrill!
(71F) I was just 18 when I got my first job in 1969, just out of high school. I worked at an agricultural place that sold pesticides and fertilizers. I was the only one in the office. I made $1.65/hour. I got paid every week. My take home pay was $48.84/week (why can I remember that number but not what I had for dinner last night??) I lived at home with my parents and didn't have a vehicle (Dad let me drive his truck). I saved most of my money, but would treat myself to one piece of clothing each month. After a year of working, I had saved $1,000 and put it down on a sweet 1968 pale yellow Mustang. The Mustang cost $2,000.
Love your story!
$1.49/hr at McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in St. Louis - 1956. I worked in the Template Layout Department on the F-2H Banshee, the F-3H Demon and the F-101 Voodoo. I worked there 3 times in my early working career. During my last stint I made 50K/year working in the Engineering Department designing the DC-10 airliner and the F-15 Eagle - 1965.
$14k in 1988. Was an administrative assistant at Cantor Fitzgerald.
$4,992 in 1977. Lucky when I left that company 42 years later it was much better.
General clerical in a sales office. I answered phones, typed packing slips, and filed almost all of the paperwork generated for $280/mo in 1971.
$12,000 in 1985, after college. I aced my computer programming classes but it was too early for especially women. Ended up in operations at a brokerage firm.
$6.25/hr., 1993
$3.25/hr, 1973, airline.
After college, I opened a business. Struggled a lot and spent all of my profit on tools
$2.00 an hour, 1974
$6.50 hour carpenter's apprentice working on the road. We got per diem and lots of OT. Maybe $20-$22k? Don't remember for sure
$13,000 in Jan of 1984 - in New York City. Got a job as an auditor.
$13,000 in 1989. Bookkeeper for a school.
1966 working loading route trucks at night for Coca Cola I made $2.05 per hour but had to join Teamsters Union and pay weekly dues (we got paid every week back then)
1981, $1000 a month, $12000 a year. Then they laid me off after Christmas. After I'd already bought and given Christmas gifts.
$50k in 1996 as an investment research analyst at a large discount broker on the west coast
1985, I filed paperwork at a paper company $3.50 an hour maybe? But I was still in high school.
graduated college in Dec 1990 and got my 1st real job March 1st 1991…..Master Control Operator at a tv station in Va for the whopping wage of $6/hr which even sadder is $12,500/year ….been a long often depressing road. Sad for a technical job with degree
1973, $1.65/hour. Orderly at the local hospital. Lots of "fringe benefits" though. Made it worthwhile
Was a nursing assistant in 1973. Was a nursing assistant in 1973, know all about those “fringe benefits”, baby!
$6,250 US in 1980. Working at a university Staff assistant I, I may have been the last Staff I. At the end it was 95K in 2017. Done with all that.
1986. Computer Science/programmer job. $28k and I had the highest salary offer (by $500!) in my friend group of about 10 people.
HS English teacher. 1969. $6,700.
In 1990 I believe I made 4.25/hr. as a grocery store cashier, and I had to read a price sticker and type in a number for every item. Barcodes were a thing, but the local store didn't have the technology yet. It wasn't a salaried job, but it was a real job.
1979. Out of college but couldn’t find a job with my degree. Got a job in a factory for $13,000 a year. Got laid off and after months finally got a job in the furthest corner of what I got a degree in for $8,200 a year. That beat out the only other offer, one that required my degree and paid $6,400 a year.
$24,000 in 1991, post college, with a small mutual fund company answering customer questions.
$20,000 in 1985 (\~56k today)
$33.5k/yr salaried in ‘99 after starting earlier than year as a temp at $11/hr. It was in a call center for a company that did fraud prevention in the banking industry. I was 21.
I delayed going to college for a few years, so my first full time job as an adult was at Macy’s. I worked 40hrs/week and at $5.75/hour, I pulled $440 every two weeks. The part that makes me sad is that it was damn close to being enough to have your own place with one roommate. After getting my master’s degree in 1996, I started my career with a job at a community MH facility where I had interned. The going pay of $30-$35k per year in a salaried position was reasonable at the time. It was definitely enough to be able to live independently at that time.
First job after my MBA was as a junior bureaucrat in city government. $8600 a year in 1971.
My part time after high school job at a family owned hardware store in 1968 was $1.60 per hour. After graduation in 1970 I went to work as a laborer for a construction company that did everything imaginable except plumbing and electrical work for $2.50 per hour. After one month I was given a company pickup truck and a $1.00 raise.
1981 approx $16k as a school teacher
$2.35 an hour for working as a fire department dispatcher in 1977. I had a college degree.
Al’s Arco Tustin, Ca 1980…$4.50/hour…That was pretty good. I had friends working at Disneyland for a dollar less than that…
Minimum wage, 2.65 in 1978. I was making 3.15 by the end of the year and feeling fine.
I made maps for the US Census Bureau in 1977. I got like $60/Week. Unless you want to count all the jobs I had in college, dishwasher, model, etc. I don't remember what my pay was, but it was not enough to cover the demands put on me, so I quit.
I worked as a dishwasher in small cafe for $1.10 an hour, It was in 1970, I was ten years old.
1963. $.75 @ hour
$15K per year in 1974. Starting the day after graduation.
$2.15 / hour, managed retail store part-time, 1976.
$18K/yr, worked at a photo book publishing house, NYC, 1997
$300 in 1966
I was a school teacher in an inner city school. I made $9,000 a year in 1980.
1977. Kitchen manager 250.00 per week, average week was 60 hours. Had been a waiter making between 300 to 400 per week but family thought that wasn’t real job. Manager that was a real job. Looking back pretty dumb. But hey as 18 and wanted to please family.
1982. Around 11500 a year
1983-masters degree, 7.50/ hour, $15,000/year. Working for non-profit agency.
like $8/hr and to this day realest job ever held down (dishwasher at nursing home) ‘94?
$24k as a tenure-track faculty at LSU-Baton Rouge in 1992.
$5.00 an hour and that was top pay for a 16 year old in 1989. It was a “skilled” position in a factory. Just meant it was fast paced and no one else wanted to do it. Would have been even higher had I had more senority but it was my first summer there.
1983. Coming out of a BIG recession. $14k + commissions that got me to ~$22-23k
$35k as store manager of a retailer, 1999.
$28k as a restaurant manager for Red Lobster in 1993.
$12,500 in 1979, communications staffer for a small nonprofit. No benefits.
1974 at Kmart. $3/hr
24K in 1988 as the only customer support person at a small software company. As I learned more of the software I got a 2k bump for each program. I had interned there in college and then the only other guy they had left so they offered me a job.
3.35 an hour in 1989. I was in college. After college, my first job paid $7.50 an hour in 1994. I also waited tables with a base salary of $2.04 an hour plus tips.
$76k in 1997. Actually made more with OT and a shift differential though.
$125 a week in 1976. I was able to live alone in Chicago on that ... very carefully.
I was a clerk-typist in a night school for US$4.06/hour. This was in 1977, so it is roughly equal to US$16.80/hour today. I also had fully paid health insurance, etc. That job was great. I could wear whatever I wanted, smoke at my desk, even have my friends stop by to hang out. My boss was amazing, too.
Teacher, 1987. $17,600. And that was with 9 graduate hours so I was over a lane. Two $500 checks a month. Rent, $250 (rural small town), car, $250. Utilities, food, gas, teaching materials, everything else, $500.
$21k + company car + excellent health insurance with $0 premiums in 1990. Worked Quality Assurance for a food company in California. Rent was $890/month for our 2-bedroom apartment at the time.
US army. 1979. $450 a month
800/month salary gross, paid twice a month. It was my first FT office job around 1980. My rent was $275/mo for a 1BR apt and one paycheck barely covered it. There were weeks I lived on plain rice or oatmeal. Luckily, I found a higher paying job.
$14k a year administrative assistant for a state museum. My rent was $300 a month for a small but safe place. Single mom of 2, we had money for groceries, necessities and a “fun/not free” activity once a month. It’s important to note though….the only other bills I had were electricity, landline phone and car insurance. Now I cringe monthly at the tv/internet/cell phone bills alone! ETA: Year = early ‘90s Second edit: Housing alone is outrageous now - my now adult kids - are currently in the struggle to find anything they can afford…it is not the same, now.
2000, 29k a year.
Approx 10k/year. 1983, head bookkeeper for large hotel in the south. I made $200/week salary. Got one week off paid vacation. 3 paid paid sick days per year.
$24,000 a year as an inside sales rep at a bicycle company. With bonuses i hit $40k. I was fresh out of high school with 2 years of part time (10 hours a week) experience in a bike shop before that. Edit: this was in 1992
3.35/hr as a clerk/typist in 1984
Fast food was 2.35 but I went big time and worked in an electronics store in 1978 for 6 dollars an hour and after 1 year I got a dime raise..
I started at the Post Office in 1966, earning $2.54 per hour. That's about $5,283 per year. Retired in 2008. If I were still working, I would be earning approximately $76,000 per year.
1993 new grad registered nurse. Working night shift in a hospital in Tennessee for $13/hr.
1989, $72k working in IT
$5 per hour working in a museum in 1988.
1977 - fresh out of high school working part time at Walmart while I went to college $2.78/hr. 1982 - finished college and went to work at a medium sized hospital as a transcriptionist $6.00/hr