# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/41 "2008-06-02T19:20:17Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] My first job was at IBM, for the summer. My father worked there and I won their scholarship which meant a guaranteed summer job (one of the perks that fell by the wayside years ago). I worked as a telephone operator for the plant, and I believe I made ~$6.18 an hour. It would have been in 1985, so very good wages for a kid at her first job. My first “real” permanent job was in 1990 and I made $18K/year in an accounting office for a non-profit. [/QUOTE] Watson scholarship? Me too! I worked summer jobs at IBM in NY’s Hudson Valley in 1982, 1983 and 1984. In terms of money the best one was the middle year, I packed boxes in a warehouse and there was a lot of overtime. Your base hourly rate is about what I remember as well. (In terms of my personal life the best year was the last year, where I met the young woman who became my first mutually serious girlfriend.) My first full time job was as a lab technician at a fairly famous research hospital in Boston in the late 1980s, I started at 16,000 a year, there was no overtime available. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/42 "2008-06-02T19:25:40Z")
[QUOTE=Darryl Lict] $1.90/ hour for being a delivery boy for a pharmacy. This was a long, long time ago. [/QUOTE] I made $1.90 as a “carry out girl” at the local pizza place. I took phone orders and rang up customers. This was 1977. Before that, I made $1/hour for babysitting. If the parents allowed you to drink pop while “on duty” that was a huge benefit (most often they would leave one glass bottle of it out for my consumption once the baby was asleep or whatever). When I in turn had to hire sitters (teens), their mothers told me what type of pop their daughters preferred. :eek: And they wanted $3-5/hr for one kid. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/43 "2008-06-02T19:28:47Z")
$25 per night every Friday and Saturday playing in a band. On weekdays I taught guitar lessons for $5 per half hour, of which I kept $3 for myself. I made about $80 per week with that. Being that it was 1979 and I lived with my parents, that wasn’t bad. It kept me in pot and guitar strings. ---
**Author:** ![Hockey\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@Hockey\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hockey_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/44 "2008-06-02T19:31:36Z")
1986 - $3.35/hr. I got paid at the end of the month. My first check was for $500+ dollars and I was loving life! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/45 "2008-06-02T19:49:08Z")
Not counting summer jobs, my first job back in 1974 paid $2.80 an hour. I got more than the minimum at the time ($2.00) because they were thinking of making me a manager. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/46 "2008-06-02T19:55:33Z")
First job was planting white pine trees in clearcut or burned areas with a group of juvinile delinquents for the Forestry Department, I think I got $30 or $40 a day. First regular job was stocking shelves and cleaning up at a small local grocery store in 1986 or so, I was getting $3.35 an hour. Worst part is the owner would keep me talking after work and I couldn’t get home to watch TV… :rolleyes: And I had to clean the meat department sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/47 "2008-06-02T19:58:17Z")
My senior year of high school, which would have been 1972-73, I made 90 cents an hour waitressing before school and on Saturday mornings at a coffee shop a few blocks from my home. The week before the two brothers who ran it declared bankruptcy, they gave me a raise to $1 an hour. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/48 "2008-06-02T19:58:25Z")
$0.50 per hour in 1953; bagging and taking out groceries to customer’s cars----but we got tips, sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/49 "2008-06-02T19:58:43Z")
[QUOTE=Laughing Lagomorph] Watson scholarship? Me too! I worked summer jobs at IBM in NY’s Hudson Valley in 1982, 1983 and 1984. [/QUOTE] Hmm…I was in the Hudson Valley too. I would ask if you were my brother, but he never worked in Boston. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/50 "2008-06-02T19:59:26Z")
Whatever minimum wage was in 1995 when I started my summer job at McDonald’s. I want to say it was $4.75/hr. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/51 "2008-06-02T20:17:25Z")
$13 a round caddying at a local country club, which usually worked out to $18 with tip. Double bagging it cost double, I’m no simp. I could usually manage two rounds a day on the weekends and usually managed about $60 for 12 hours of work or so. First hourly wage was hanging pizza flyers door to door around the neighborhoods for $4 an hour and all you could eat when you were done 🆒 . The owner was the coolest guy on Earth, but if he caught you dumping flyers in a dumpster like some of my friends did you’d get your ass kicked. My first paycheck job was Micky D’s for $4.25 an hour which was the minimum wage in like 1993. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/52 "2008-06-02T21:12:30Z")
$5.25/hr (Hawaii minimum wage) at McD’s. This was also around 1993-4. ---
**Author:** ![Stringer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Stringer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringer)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/53 "2008-06-02T21:47:07Z")
$7/hour as a 16 year old software development intern in 1997. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/54 "2008-06-02T22:18:46Z")
Stacking 25-30 lb. boxes of fresh fruit ten hours a day for $3.35 an hour in the summer of 1984 - I was 13. I thought I was the richest dude in America. Not a bad way for a kid to learn what hard work really was. Of course it took me six more summers to figure that out. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/55 "2008-06-02T22:40:26Z")
Just about minimum wage working at a craft boutique in the mid-90s. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2008, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/56 "2008-06-02T22:50:17Z")
$.75 an hour at the lunch counter of a bowling alley, but that only lasted about a week then the state’s mandated minimum wage went up to $1.25. But that was OK. I made my real money playing pool in the attached pool room. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2008, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/57 "2008-06-03T01:20:39Z")
Assuming you mean first paid job, $6.25/hour at Subway in 2004. Ten cents above minimum wage. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2008, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/58 "2008-06-03T01:28:07Z")
My first ever job was 11/hr last year, give or take, for the university semielectronics research center. Mostly, I worked in the cleanroom. After 2 semesters, I got about 14/hr. Now I work for almost exactly half that as the Promotions Director for the greatest college radio station ever, and it’s equally worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2008, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/59 "2008-06-03T01:29:22Z")
The summer after my sophomore year of high school, my school paid me $500 for the summer to work as a PC tech. Seemed like real money at the time (2000), and I loved the work. Good times. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2008, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443/60 "2008-06-03T01:31:29Z")
Let’s see… First two jobs would have been in the summers of 1993-1994 and 1995-1998, when (I think) minimum wage was $5.25 per hour. Both paid over that, though, I think about $5.50. The first job was as an electrician’s assistant, and the second was ride operator at a kiddie amusement park (the sort with a 20-foot-tall Ferris wheel). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-you-make-at-your-first-job/451443.md?page=4)