1978 $2.65/hr

My first tax paying job was $7/hr in 1987, my senior year in high school. I was the doorman at a popular bar. I made so much in tips, they had to remind me to cash my checks. All my previous jobs were cash based.

1976 $2.30 an hour, housekeeping deptartment at a local hospital

First job at 16 was at Diary Queen in 1978..
$2.65 an hour averaging a 20 hour work week.
But all the Hungerbusters and Dilly bars I could eat...


https://www.dol.gov/agencies/w...m-wage/history/chart

$2.15 local sporting good store

$2.35 helping out as a scab boxboy at my dad's supermarket during a labor strike. Not exactly legal per labor laws at the time but I was 13, so what did I know?

4.25/hour

1995

$4.25 in 1994

First taxable job was sweeping cigarettes and emptying trash cans at an amusement park... moved up to games/rides/lifeguard pretty quickly from that!

Mowing fairways for $4.25 an hour, it was a great job at 15yo. Got up at 4AM, rode my bike the 4 miles to the golf course and was done by 10AM normally.

The salaries of most of you who started working in the 60s and 70s are unbelievable. Many of you were making the equivalent of $12-20 per hour adjusted for inflation.

My first wage earning job was in 2001 at age 15.
Made $5.15 an hour to lifeguard a local municipal swimming pool.

Looks like $3.35 was the answer while ~16, though I'd been working at the same golf course for "cash" for 3 years by then. Also from looking at SS earnings statement online I made a whopping $783 that year, about $2,000 the following.

My SS statement is always an interesting storyline that shows so much of what was happening in the real world behind the scenes over the years. If you've not looked at yours lately, you should, bet it is the same for many of us.

In 1973 I had a job building custom motorcycle seats for 1.10 per hour. I couldn't believe I could make this much. I was still in high school working summer and later after football practice. I was the one of few that were not related. I decided to quit when the owner ran through my work area, followed closely by his wife. She had a pistol and was yelling something about him screwing someone on her sheets! The workplace environment didn't seem nearly as safe after that!

Jim

Worked after school in a grocery store meat department and full time in the summers. Started in 1958 at $1.35 an hour.

$2/hr. Work at a photo studio 1976-77. B&W processing and printing and general duty go-fer.

1992, I was 15 yrs old working at the Winchester Mystery House.
I worked as a cashier and reheated up food from time to time
They paid $5.00 an hr starting wage.

$1.65 per hour in 1969, pumping gas at a local gas station in the 9th grade.

$3.35/hr in 1984 cashier and stockroom at People's Drug Store. Stayed there through high school and then seasonally in college.

1976 $1.89 an hour.