# How much did you make at your first job? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 2, 2008, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443 "2008-06-02T06:30:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/1 "2008-06-02T06:30:21Z")
Just curious. The year might be of note as well. My first regular paying job (I’d had “day labor” and under the table jobs before) was working at a home for the mentally retarded in 1986. I earned $4.00 per hour, which was well above the then minimum wage of $3.35. The next year I became a hotel bellman for $3.35 plus tips which usually worked out to be well over $4.00 per hour. I remember later getting a desk clerk position for $4.75 per hour and thinking that was good money, and when I was promoted all the way up to $6.75 later I really felt I was in high cotton. Odd how relatively recent that was considering that today I’d look on that as near abject poverty. ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/2 "2008-06-02T06:39:58Z")
I think I got $6/hr working at a quasi-fast-food Italian place. For that wage, the second a customer complained, the first words out of my mouth were, “Let me go get my manager.” Just a summer job. Construction 4 summers later was way better. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/3 "2008-06-02T06:41:48Z")
$1.75 per hour, bagging groceries at the A&P. This was in 1969. ---
**Author:** ![Kayeby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kayeby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kayeby)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/4 "2008-06-02T06:50:02Z")
$6 an hour selling fairy floss. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/5 "2008-06-02T07:14:14Z")
Leaving aside pocket money jobs (shovelling snow, babysitting, showing various neighbours how to use their computers, etc.), my first job was minimum wage, which at the time was either $6.80 or $6.90 an hour. (It’s now $8.50.) I worked in my college library, where I scanned documents for online course packs, prepared new books by adding tape, mactac, etc., and did shelf-reading (verifying that the books on the shelves were in the right order). ---
**Author:** ![Crescend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Crescend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crescend)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/6 "2008-06-02T07:37:29Z")
$8 an hour as a part-time IT monkey in the university administration building. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/7 "2008-06-02T07:45:43Z")
I have no idea. Is it abnormal to not remember life details like that? I’d make a crap grandpa. “In my day son, I use to work… er… several hours a day, possibly eight, and they paid me only… ah… something, probably less than $10/hour!” My first job was as a newspaper boy, I think I got about $15/week to do one round per day, Sundays excepted. This was in the mid 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Dottygumdrop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Dottygumdrop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dottygumdrop)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/8 "2008-06-02T07:57:15Z")
$5 (Australian) per hour working as a junior clerk in a pharmacy on Saturday mornings. The year was 1988. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/9 "2008-06-02T08:00:15Z")
$1.90/ hour for being a delivery boy for a pharmacy. This was a long, long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/10 "2008-06-02T08:08:11Z")
£120 a week, working in a youth hostel in 1984. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/11 "2008-06-02T08:49:56Z")
I assume things like babysitting don’t count; anyway in Spain you don’t get paid for those. My first real job according to my wallet was 10 weeks working as a receptionist and general coffee fetcher in a summer camp in the USA; 1988. Salary: $350. Bonus for arriving two weeks before the camp opened: $250. Bonus for teaching mothers how to try socks by wrapping them around their kids’ fists, cutting down enormously on the mess during “incoming days;” for selling such an amount of Camp Stuff it was silly; for being dang efficient around the office if I may so myself: $350. Flights from our home countries to the camps and from selected cities back home was provided by the organization bringing us in. It was less than 1/3 what an American would have been paid (I prepared the checks), but the thing is, for us it still came down to “a whole summer in the USA for pocket money, yay!” And in my case, thanks to the bonus, I even made money. My first job according to the Spanish government was in 1993. Summer job as a Lab Tech in a tiny factory: 9 employees, 3 of us in the lab. As it was a “training contract”, my salary was 70% of minimum wage. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@The\_Tof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tof)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/12 "2008-06-02T09:17:26Z")
My sisters then boyfriends parents (got that?) owned a concession stand company and would hire my sister and I for various jobs. This was when I lived in San Diego… most commonly we would work every year at the Del Mar Fair and at th El Cajon Speedway. The Del Mar Fair I made minimum wage, which was 4 something/hr. I don’t remember what it was at the time. ($4.18? that sticks out in my mind.) El Cajon Speedway I would make $20/night as a flat rate. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/13 "2008-06-02T09:19:15Z")
Close to minimum wage (in the 1980s) for McDonalds. I think I made $3.45ish. ---
**Author:** ![Surly\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/14 "2008-06-02T10:44:48Z")
My first full time job out of university paid me whopping $12,500 a year in 1985. Man, I was broke and the job sucked big time. I lasted an entire six months. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/15 "2008-06-02T11:14:50Z")
My first real job was a summer job at the Polar Bear Ice Cream Shop in Gun Barrel City, Texas, in 1978. I think I made like $2.00 and hour, maybe 20 hours a week. I spent my first paycheck on a ticket/film/gas for my mom’s Pacer to the first Texas Jam (1978), featuring Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Mahogany Rush, Heart, Journey, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Head East, Eddie Money, Van Halen (they just came out!) and Walter Egan. ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/16 "2008-06-02T11:19:57Z")
Apart from holiday jobs, my first job after graduation was in an arts centre cafeteria, in 1985. £2.10 an hour, IIRC. After deductions my weekly take home pay was between £50 and 60. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/17 "2008-06-02T11:54:03Z")
Whatever minimum wage was in 1987. $3.65 or something. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/18 "2008-06-02T11:58:34Z")
When I was 13/14 in the mid 70’s I worked around 30 hours/week at a small engine repair shop for $10/week. During summer breaks from university (1980 - 1984) I’d do laboring for $5.00/hr. In 84 I worked as a security guard at the L.A. Olympics, again for $5.00/hr. My first professional job as a programmer paid $22,000/yr in 1985. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/19 "2008-06-02T12:00:10Z")
$1.60/hr as a busboy in a restaurant in 1974. Plus each waitress was supposed to give me a cut of 50 cents per day out of her tips, except some refused to pay if I didn’t tend to their tables first. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/20 "2008-06-02T12:03:33Z")
$3.25 an hour, the minimum wage in the early 80’s. Not sure exactly what year. I did not move up quickly. Hard to live on that in Los Angeles. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443.md?page=2)