If you were working your first job flipping burgers or washing cars in the '60s, you might have been earning $1.60 an hour — the federal minumum wage in 1968. If you worked for minimum wage in 1980, you would have been getting $1.50 more.
Today, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and Rep. George Miller wants it to be raised to $10.10. Washington State, meanwhile, requires employers pay minimum wage at the highest rate in the country — $9.19 an hour.
If you time-traveled back to the 1930s when the first minimum wage was established in America, you'd be earning a quarter an hour.
That made us recollect our own first job and how much we made (cleaning horse stalls, $1.50 per hour). So we posed the question to our friends on the Woodinville Patch Facebook page, and got some fun answers:
- "Armadillo BBQ. Back when it was in Woodinville. Almost broke my nose when a utensils rack fell on my face off the fridge." (No wage listed).
- "Dishwasher at Barnaby's restaurant at Factoria Square (Bellevue). $3.10/hr! I burned my arms on the hot equipment. And if I broke anything, it would cost me $4.50 to $10.00. Only lasted 7 hours (one evening) since I didn't drive and they kept me on a school night till 1:30am."
- "Vet tech, aka cleaning up after the real vets for 4.25 an hr in CA."
- "Soooo long ago.....$1.35/hours working at a hardware store stocking shelves and helping carry out 'stuff'."
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Do you remember working for minimum wage? What was it and what did you do? Please share your experience below.
