Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How much did you make at your first real job?

$3.35/hr 3-4hrs/wk setting/pulling clay pigeons @ the local trap club when I was 13/14 yrs old.

$4.35/hr + some commission working @ a clothing store ~20hrs/wk in high-school.

Freshman in HS and made 85 cents an hour washing dishes. Left to flip hamburgers for a buck fifteen. High cotton times.
George

$1.15 an hour washing dishes at Ferguson's Cafeteria. I think I was 14 yo.

First wage job was $3.35/hr. First job out of college was 80k per year.

1.40 late 70s

How the hell am I supposed to remember hourly pay from the 70's??

As I vaguely recall as a summer hire for a paper company/woodlands division I totaled about $1400 or $1500 after taxes for the summer (40 hrs/week mid June - end of Aug '77). Maybe it was in the $4/hr range? Worked for them three summers '77-79 when I was in College.

Did work part time at a campground a few summers when I was in high school: collecting and burning garbage, cutting firewood, trimming brush, cleaning bathhouses, etc. Don't remember rate but it wasn't much, might have made $3-400 over the summer.

Got about $600 a month and some tuition covered as a 20 hr/week teaching assistant in graduate school fall of '80 - spring '82. Also made a little as a 2LT Army Reserve (1 weekend/mo and one 2-week summer rotation). I think it was about $140 a month plus $500 or $600 for the two week summer rotation.

Went active duty Army in July '82 as a 1LT, $1382.40 a month!

The best part about those early earning years is that I came out of 6 yrs of college/two degrees with no student debt and a couple of thousand dollars in the bank. A 4-yr ROTC Scholarship, summer jobs, teaching assistant and Reserve drill pay in graduate school, plus some help from my parents to cover room and board kept me out of loans. Just owed the Army 6 yrs of my life! Ended up doing 20 so that worked out OK.

First real full time year-round job out of college was $3.90 / hour, 1975. Last 12 1/2 years before retiring in 2017, I topped out at $50 / hr as a freelance structural designer/drafter . . . only worked 1200 +/- hours per year . . . Yeah, my bride had a better job, but I got to work from home.

First job out of college, 1987, $17,500/year, management at The Big Red K.

$100 a month. Paper boy. Was 12. Then got a job at a local park in the early 90s making 3.65 and hr

First job where I paid taxes?

I think I was 14 or so. 1988ish? Made $3.35 an hour cracking eggs. 210 dozen a shift, then on to dishes, mopping, and occasionally grinding meat, running tomatoes through the machine to remove peels and seeds, and assorted other KP duty.

Not sure E1 US Navy 1981

1972, started as lineman for Mountain Bell telephone Co, starting wage for know nothing 18 year old kid was the princely sum of $107.50 a week.

$12,500 a year working as "The Small Systems Expert for the Cincinnati-Dayton Region" for a consulting group out of Buffalo, NY. I was writing BASIC programs for a Canadian Payroll app. They billed me at probably some ungodly amount to the customers, but $12.5K was barely over minimum in those days. I had to commute an hour each way to Dayton. I worked a few gigs for them and then gave it up after they wanted me back in Dayton.

The customer jammed 6 of us in a small conference room with a Minicomputer, two very loud line printers and terminals. The mini was prone to catching fire. The printers were loud enough that gun muffs would have been a good idea, and the project lead was a drunk who was prone to falling asleep. That wasn't so bad, but he snored. I was carpooling with another programmer from Cincinnati. He was an avowed Communist. That wasn't so bad, but he got death threats from the Klan for his various activities, and I decided to start driving on my own. One programmer commuted from below Lexington, KY every day. Another was coming from Columbus. That fellow was on the lam and operating under an assumed name. He'd made a mistake and fouled up a payroll at a coal mine in WV, and had gone on the run to escape mad miners.

All I will say best damn thing to ever happen to me is when I joined the U.S Army… my job prior to me joining I was making $10.40 an hour about $19,900 a yr. No promotion potential, we hadn’t gotten a raise in 3yrs.

Edit had my first for real summer job when I was 14 making a whopping $3.35 an hour. My first pay check I thought I made the big time lol. Went and cashed it, Then my dad turned to me in the car and said hand it over.. So much for me being big money hustla. That went into the family don’t starve fund/get eviction notice.. My dad was kind of a turd. My last check for the summer, I did get to buy my school clothes yay lucky me.. lol..

$1.75 while working in a sawmill that made hardwood pallets. Year was 1975.

I worked the whole summer and saved $175 which I promptly spent on a new Ithaca M37 12ga.

I have hauled hay for 2 cents a bale, and chopped cotton for 6 dollars a day, but that was part time work. My first full time job was laying steel building a grain elevator, called a rice drier around here, for $1.25 an hour, working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Time and half for all over 40 hours. miles

Seems like I netted $130 per 60hr. week. 1971 at "the big truckstop" on I-20. 6p.m to 6a.m.
18 years old. I could party hard on that.

freshman year HS '85 I made $5 an hour off the books digging trenches and doing irrigration installations. and that was far in excess of everyone else I knew.



first real job that was intended to be a career was '94 and that was $29k. Pretty low by comparison to my buddies in other careers.

77.50 per week as a telco lineman.

$1.65 hour 1966 West Texas Utilities