I started my plumbing apprenticeship on June 30, 1971. I was making 50% of journeyman’s wages which was 6.20, so I was making 3.10 which works out to 6500.00 per year.

What were you making when you got out of high school or college? I’m talking first real job, not high school.

I was clearing 98.46 a week if I made 40 hours. I got married in December. She and I about starved to death until got 2nd year pay. It went to 4.50 an hour.

$36 a month from US Navy.Not bad considering free food,clothes and all the bullchit you could handle.

About $800 per month.

Wearing a badge and gun no less.

Started on the family farm at $500 a month plus an old farm house. I still had to pay all utilities including oil heat. When the wind blew so did the curtains.

Not much E-3 pay

$4.55 hourly in 1979, guaranteed 40 hour work week. Retiring August 2020

$28k a year as a 2ndLT in the Marine Corps in 1991

I think that it was $3.61 an hour at the packing plant, but I can't be sure. When I started teaching, it was $8550 per year.

If you broke it down to hourly and the amount of hours worked a week, I think I would have owed the government!

$27K a year in '89 as a Systems Engineer

I thought it was all the money in the world

now I wish I was a 2nd LT in the Marine Corp!

Salaried, $9500 per year in 1973, right out of college, and I worked about 60 hours a week. No OT pay.

Looks like it was $814.20 That is $407.10 before takes per pay period.

$407.10 divided by 160 hours would be $2.54 an hour! But don't forget I still have to give back my share to Uncle Sam!

$15,120 as an Ensign in 1987 + $50 a month flight pay so $15,720 total a year. I was single, lived on Perdido Key within an easy walk to the Floribama , had a sports car and flew jets for a living.

It's been downhill since then.

You worked 160 hours per pay period?? Did you walk uphill 5 miles both ways to school in the snow also? 😁

$814.20 divided by 160 hours is roughly $5.08 per hour....you were making twice as much as you thought you were. 😂

First real job was $7/hour in high school in Alaska then $2.10 in high school in Oregon. The good chit was building pole barn trusses at $2.30 per at about 19. Been upward ever since. LOL

Working for the US Government in 1985 for $14,390, with a Masters Degree no less!

A 160 hour work period is on the light side actually. If you knew anything about 30 plus year old CH53D's and the man hours required to keep them up at a 85% mission capable level you would no my facts are correct! But nice try!!!! No I didn't walk up hill to school it was a relatively flat walk, though it did snow often in the winter. I always preferred bumper skiing to walking.

That would have been 1969 and I made 2.00/hour plus room and board building power line.

About 37k

I made $1.65 an hour with a tar and gravel roofing company at my first job out of high school in 1968. Gave up that glorious job to make $78 a month in the Army as an E-1.

Had to look it up, as I really didn't remember.

In July of 1976 I earned $374 monthly as a Private E1, U.S. Army.

By the time I got to my permanent party base at Ft Bragg I was an E3, and remember living comfortably.

Consider that at my time at Ft McClellan in November 1976 I bought my first Remington 788 on sale for $89 at a hardware store just off post.. Regular price $99...

Not much, I ran away from college to join the army in1966. I spent 27 of 36 months in RVN which was a good savings program. When I got out I bought a new Roadrunner for cash. My next job paid $4.00/hour as a Lifeguard on Huntington Beach, Ca. best job ever.



mike r

In 1961 started a job at minimum wage - $1.25 per hr. - that was $40.00 per week.

I spent every dime on Friday, Saturday and Sunday on Maryann Brown.

Got up Monday and did it all over again, couldn't wait until Friday.

It's kind of a blur, but I think it was about $600/month as a 2nd Louie in flight school, 1969. That was high living back then. Like Pugs, I was young, had free room, my own car, and flew jets. (Also put in 16 tough hours a day with academics, PT, flying, and studying, all in Laredo Texas July heat.)

Correction: I misrememberized. Pay scale shows I got $386/mo plus flight pay, so about $430 a month.

$1.65 per hour in high school

I went in through the PLC program so we accrued longevity from the date we signed up, not the date of commissioning. First year I got paid as an O-1 over 4, it ticked off the academy guys that we were making more than them.

even at 60 hours, that has to be pretty good jack for '73 starting out.

IIRC, it was 78 bucks a month when I enlisted in the Air Force in 1958. Took a long time to get much better than that.

$1.85 an hour (union wage) as a bus boy in '67. But, made out quite well with tips (in my pocket).

1974, $12,000/yr. And that was with a masters degree and working six days a week every other week. Fun, but a lot of money in 1974.

First job in 1968 washing dishes in a restaurant $1.15 an hour. First job out of H.S. was as a construction laborer at $2.00 an hour.

I worked for a neighbor who was a plumber while in high school during the summers and on weekends. He offered to get me in the Union once I graduated and enrolled me in the apprenticeship through my Union. I started plumbing full time the day after I graduated high school. It was the 1st of June in 1995. Been doing it ever since! I think my starting wage was around $11 an hour plus my benefits. Apprenticeship through the Union was a 5yr program with raises every 6 months until I topped out @ Journeyman scale. In the 24yrs I’ve been doing it I’ve only worked for 3 contractors. 1st one eventually retired then I had a short 2 or 3yr period I worked for one and then went to my current employer where I’ve been for the past 10yrs. It’s been a good trade. Plenty of work! Never have missed any time over those years. It’s put a roof over my head and provided me with great benefits and hopefully a decent retirement that I can enjoy life a little after I’m done.

First job out of college i was an entry level accountant/analyst. 8.50 an hour if i recall correctly

More kids need to take this route! Well done

First college degree, 1967, $3.50/hr working for an Architect, Second college degree, 1970, $8.200 starting salary for a teacher.
Things over the past 50 years have gotten a whole lot better. :>)
That pay back in 67 allowed me to buy a brand new 67 Mustang Covert, 289 HP , 4 speed with 8 track stereo., $3,200 out the door

$2.65 an hour and one BIG noon meal on a farm. 1982 . I usually worked until November cleaning seed beans for the next year and worked for a carpenter in the winter. Started cleaning out the grain bins in march.

Did a bunch of odd carpentry jobs right out of HS to make a buck.83

$3.90/hr for my first plumbing/heating job in 84,knew the money sucked ,but also knew I needed to work.

You were lucky!

I hope the local you are in, is better than Local 68

I think I made about $1.80 per hour working on a road crew in 1966. That was my first full time job.

This

I was suppose to make 50 cents and hour, but I worked from sun up to dusk five days a week and they gave me a $20 bill.

I guess my real first job other than farm work was working as a stable boy at a thoroughbred horse ranch. Pay was $125 a week in 1971.
I loved that job. Hard work and cleaning the stalls sucked but I got to groom the horses and exercise them. They had trotters too. Cool horses.

$288 per month as an E1 Private Marine in 1972. Was making $1.25 per hour in a filling station six months prior to my enlistment, after flunking our of college my first semester.
$1041 per month as an O1E 2ndLt Marine in 1980 after graduating from college.

Started my 5-year Electrical Apprenticeship in the IBEW in June 1995. Made $6.35/Hr which was 35% of Journeyman scale. That was quite a pay cut from the $16/Hr I was making. But I saw it as a short term sacrifice.

Local 360 Plumbers & Gasfitters

I don’t really have any complaints. Of course, I’ve always worked steady with contractors so I really haven’t had a lot of dealings with them. I leave them alone ... they leave me alone type of relationship. Lol. Once I finished my apprenticeship & schooling I really haven’t been involved much with it. Not necessarily the right attitude but life is busy and I always had other priorities.

$3.20 per hour, 1979 minimum wage raking asphalt on a paving crew.... lucky if we got a full 40hr week.

First real job was driving 18 wheeler.... making minimum wage, and I think it was $1.65/hr. If I put in 100 hrs/wk, I could bring home a little over $200.

Quit that job to work lead tongs on drilling rig. Working 7 8's and making around $4.50/hr, bringing home over $600 every 2 weeks. Working 56 hrs/wk instead of 100 was like a vacation every day. Had money to spend and time to spend it.

570.00 something
E-1 1983

Prior to that I worked 2 winters bucking logs in the loading yard with my 2 uncles up in Maine.
Even made it up to the "exhaulted" postion of grappel skidder operator. LOL!!!
Weekends and school breaks $75 bucks a day.
Skip a day of school if got a decent notice.
(Usually a drunk hungover crew member call in)
Pretty good money for partying with in high school and some gun buys.

Retired from unca suga in 08.
Retired from civilian world jobs in 15
Last job was roustabout/slinger for 3 years GOM and The Black Sea
Last year on the Black Sea I made 129k.
28 on 28 off 12 hr shifts
Paid off alot of bills on that job and tucked away alot to set myself up to say Im done.
My checking account grows each unca suga payday.
Wife is a big wig at a daycare ( empty nest syndrome)
She dont have to work, she just like being around kids.

I'm waiting on some of that Social Security fun and gun money when I turn 62
Want that schitt sooner than later.
Get hit by a fugging asteriod at 63 65 67 or whatever the fugg the max age is and never collect a cent.
Fugg that. .....

Im 56.....

Fresh out of high school in 1968 went to work for a mason contractor. Two bucks an hour IIRC. We got paid with a personalized check that had a picture of a mason putting up a block wall on the front of the check. After a few of those bounced we had trouble cashing them in local businesses that did check cashing. After awhile all they had to see was that picture on the check and they wouldn't touch it. Or else the boss would sometimes vanish on Friday afternoon ( payday ) and his wife would tell us he had the check book with him. That lasted from June to September when I got a job at a local Chevy dealer. Don't recall the starting pay there but it was great getting paid every Friday and being able to cash the check easily.

$1.85 ph. 1975, Christmas tree farm.

After high school, E-2 pay in 2004. After college, I made about $50k in 2014.

And here I thought it paid $96.78 per week . . . .

First ( legal real job). Sears.I Realize I'm a little younger than some and older than a few too, but for me, that first one I'll never forget. When I went through the interview and all that jazz the secretary was filling out my hire papers and I watched her write $4. 80 starting hourly pay. I had a side hustle at 16 but still. Watching what a complete stranger write down what they thought I was worth at 16 is something I'll never forget. Busted my ass worse than anything my dad and uncles made me do(my dad and uncles would stop once and a while) growing up. I'm thankful. Stacking washers, dryers, and refrigerators solo at 5 am. Good [bleep].

First real job in 1961 was $260 a month doing sales in an Industrial Hardware sales. In high school it was $1.25 per hour unloading box car loads of sheet rock and bricks off of a flatbed train car. Remember all by hand and brick tongs, no forklifts. I also did demo work with a jack hammer in the basement of old military quarters at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas.

1968 i made .95 busing tables.

It was a fun time.

But the first big money job was prep cook for a rib joint.

Made almost 300.00 a week back in 1972.

Fn spoiled rotten azz kids. I've had a about 3 kids stop in the past year in front of my house with a busted bicycle problem. I've fixed them and showed them how to, but all the while thinking where the hell is dad or a diy mom? I do my tiny part in the world .

1964. Went to work in a paint warehouse. 1.50 an hour. Hasbeen

$150/wk as a field engineer for a construction company in Charleston, SC. Then a little raise in the Army for four years. Came out and was making $16,000/yr in 1977. Hit the jackpot and went to Iran with Fluor on an oil refinery at about $48K a year. Just before the Ayatollah came back. Everyone scooted then.

$1256 a month in 1987. It seemed like a lot then.

Graduated college in 1983 and went to work as a deputy sheriff in Utah making $1240 a month, with $50 per month uniform allowance. Still wearing a gun and a badge, but I made detective in 1990 and now have a cushy job as a fraud investigator for the state.

1981 Army E2 $514.00 per month. I was 18.
4 years later I was a service writer in a Jaguar dealership making $55K a year.

!975....$760 a month...

Sure am glad I had that college degree! Really paid off!

1979 I went to work for International Harvester in the parts department in a factory branch. $6.50 an hour, free medical insurance and a pension. My first job was delivering truck parts. Loved that job, driving all over the state. Got promoted inside and I hated it.

Started running printing presses in 1966 for a bit less than a buck per hour. 53 years later still running presses. Good trade. I think I may retire...someday.

It’s simple math sport.....you could show me where I’m wrong based on your numbers but I suppose it’s more exciting for you to act like a petulant little girl and go off the handle sending angry PM’s. 😂.

I don’t know why your insecurities are constantly on display but I’m sure they’re well founded. You could ‘splain your math if it matters that much to you but you should know that I really don’t give afuck nor did I mean to upset you.... I got a chuckle out of your PM and it seems that I unknowingly and unintentionally struck a nerve by my post. 😂.

It’s really not a big deal.....but apparently it is for you so if it makes you feel better then you’ll sleep easier tonight knowing that I’ve already forgotten about your tantrum. 👍

I understand why you’ve been reduced to mail-order brides/girlfriends/boyfriends, etc.

1967 Working in a power plant $1.65 hour

Started right out of high school with New England Telephone in 1968 as a lineman. Pay was $77.50 per week with OT available. I worked with them and the different companies they merged into for 34 years with many different jobs. I retired at age 53 about 18 years ago and have not worked a day since. I hunt, fish and work around my lake shore property. NET was a great company and I enjoyed all the different types of positions I held.

What did you make when you started your first job out of college or high school?


Hamburgers and fries.

I was hired in 1992 for 19000 a year with the possibility to earn a bonus. The bonus was 1900 and I got that the last week of the year after my performance review. Base salary for 1993 was 19500.

Out of college three times: 1st $1.75/hr. 2nd $14 K a year. 3rd $24 K. Retired at around $108K.

I started working at about 12 pushing a lawn mower around our neighborhood charging $3/yard. My 1st real job was summer between 9th and 10 grade as a lifeguard. Did that for 4 summers, but worked 4-6 hours at night in a furniture factory too. I worked at the pool the summer after HS graduation which was the last year it was open. I have no idea what I was paid. I graduated HS in 1976 and worked nights in a milk processing plant through college.

My 1st good job was reading meters for the gas company during summers. Pay was pretty good. They eventually moved me to weekend dispatch. My senior year of college I worked 12 hours every Saturday and Sunday. I had a TV and waited for the phone to ring for emergencies. I was making almost $700/month.

Graduated college in 1980 and took my 1st teaching job at about $1000/month. But over time that did go up quite a bit. The gas company went down the tubes within 10 years after I graduated. I did consider just staying with them in 1980 but I made the right choice.

Hanco: In 1965 I was making $1.25 per hour - which soon, thankfully, jumped to $1.37 per hour.
Aaahhhh.... the good old days!
After a 60 hour work week I had money left over once my bills were paid.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

$3 cash/hour tending and bouncing for local beer joint. Best education I recieved pre-college or post graduate school. What a place. Could have been a successful TV show, reality or otherwise. What a place..... .

First job as HS senior- $1.60 an hour, minimum wage. Went to work for Ma Bell after graduation- $2.45. By the time I retired, I made more in three hours than I did in a week when I started.

Out of high school, I worked a service station for $1 per hour. Hot summertime, 100 degree heat, but I still enjoyed it. In college, I had a summer job at Texaco as a summer field assistant, for $500/month- big money! Once I graduated, Texaco offered me a permanent job as an exploration geologist for $1000 per month. Bigger money!

As time, and my career progressed, salary increased to multiple-$100,000's per year, not including perks, benefits, etc.

Now, I'm just a retired, old fart, enjoying bird hunting with my dog.

Whatever minimum wage was back then.

After I moved to Lexington I went to work unloading trucks for UPS making $6.17 an hour. That was decent money for a 19 year old boy back in 1975.

It was hard work, however. They treated you like a borrowed mule.

But that was okay once you got in shape to do it,....and unloading trucks at UPS would definitely put you in shape.

I was young,...in shape,...6', 180,...no fat,...had a decent paycheck coming in,..drove an old Mustang,.... split a decent apartment with a buddy,...could get a girl every now and then.

Life was good,...some of the best years of my life.

Then I started hosin' an elementary school teacher 3 years older than me who lived in the next apartment down the road.

Things stayed fugged for a long time after that. But they got better after about 20 years.

$2.15 an hour in 1977.

1985 just out of school and worked as a regional tech rep running herbicide trials in Eastern Colorado, Western Nebraska, and Western Kansas. My home was a hotel room wherever I ended up. I think I earned $18,000 a year. T

1970. My 1st job was as a country extension agent, making about $7000/yr. That was an average wage in this area at the time. My old car crapped out and I bought a new '70 Chevy Nova for about $2200. That won't buy many repairs these days. OTOH, the car was worn out at 100k. Today's cars last 2 to 3 times as long.

From about 13-16 I cut yards around the neighborhood for $2 per.

In high school during the summer, (‘66, ‘67, ‘68) worked as a “lot boy” at a car dealership, detailing used cars, sweeping, starting all the cars in the morning, delivering and picking up cars and basically being the gopher, making minimum wage which was $1.10 an hour.

In NROTC we got books, tuition and a $50/mo. stipend. Had to do three, six week summer training sessions (two cruises and a combined aviation/USMC indoc) where we were paid E-5 pay I think, or about $275/mo.

IIRC, in ‘72 as a newly commissioned, married Ensign with flight pay it was just under $8000 gross for the year. I think our first apartment we rented in Pensacola was $125/mo. With just the two of us we felt pretty well off. 😊

First job in HS as sophomore making $2.25 per hour bagging groceries.
Of course, before that I’d been bucking hay, driving a tractor and chasing cows for the old man for free room and board since about the age of 8. 🤠

Minimum wage....$1.60/hr.! Married with a kid on the way! memtb

1.65 hr in 1973 after high school in a textile mill. Been a machinist since 76. Retiring Dec 31 at 65.

Hi cruzer, you may have known my Dad. He ran the show for Fluor in Iran from 1964 until after the Shah fell. His initials were TJR. I graduated from the Tehran American School and worked summers in Abadan and Bandur Mashur. Small world.


mike r

About $34,000/yr when I started back in 1981.

25K per year as a chemist, supplemented with substitute teaching and national guard duty until I got a raise by becoming a teacher. My wife and I both worked and paid for daycare until I went active duty and made more than both of us combined, with better benefits. She stayed home and raised the kids after that.

Old70

$8,500 per year in 1976 washing dirty laundry. Thought I was in tall cotton a year later when I got a 10% raise to $9,300 per year. And the company paid 100% of benefits cost !

Less than $10K as a 2LT in 1977.

Jimmy Carter didn't pay much and most of our equipment was worn out. My platoon anti-tank weapons were M-40 106mm Recoilless rifles that would probably have bounced off the Soviet T-62s that were on the other side of the Fulda Gap. Ronald Reagan got us paid a little better and we got TOWs to replace the M-40s.

$1.65 an hour working during high school, 1973 or 74. Maybe $2.25 an hour in 1975.

I netted around $270/mo as a PV1.

$77.00 per month plus 3 hots and a bunk!

$134 a month as an E1 in 1971.

$7.05 per hour as an apprentice machinist in 1985.

5.00 a day.

$22,000.00 yr in 1999

Self employed in 1963. Not much.

$1.25/hr driving the tractor/raking hay, USDA cattle research station, I was 16 at the time, later $1.85/hr State Park Life Guard....................

After high school 12-15K..... wife didn't marry for money!

I think we all know a couple of guys here that paid their bosses just to let them work for them, and then they make so danged much money they could retire @ 45 and live like the rest of you only wish you could...

About $4.50 at 17yrs old in '89. Cigarettes were .85¢ and gas under a buck though so in today's $$ that would be $25/hr.

1993-

$859 a month gross swinging a brush hook for a DOT survey party.

I was still in high school when I learned how to drive cement mixers.

I remember my high school French teacher asking me how much they paid me to drive cement trucks.
Her jaw dropped when I told her. She said, "That's more than I make!" a little miffed.

I think it was about 12 bucks an hour.

$4.50/ hr as a meter reader for the electric utility company. Still with them as a Journeyman Lineman with 39 years of service.

1972...out of HS started painting houses for 1 1/2 yrs, don't remember $$. 1974 started working in a machine shop for $2.98 hr. working 50-60yrs a week. OT was good. 40+ years later it was a living but never got rich. Enjoyed the trade but worked some real A-holes.

Worked the summer at GM for $19/hr (My dad juiced me in). Then went home after the temp ended and made $9/hr welding patio furniture. I paid $9 a week for full medical, prescription ,eye, and dental too.

1988 PVT E-1 in the US Army. I think it was $700? Maybe $750 a month?

fifty cents per hour.....and it was a good start

Mid May...1988

Straight out of Tech school into an injection moldmaker apprenticeship

$5 an hour

Summer of '93 I made $4.35/hr pumping gas in Riverside California...

1975 - $3.90/hr . . . thought I was in tall cotton at $8112/yr. Boy, was I wrong.

$1382 a month in 1982 as an Army 1LT after Grad School/ME Degree.

Early 70's working all the time (after school and weekends). Learning carpenter trade. So poor I couldn't pay attention. Wert we all. Worked my way through college. Got a job with a badge and a gun. Working 4-10's. Construction work on the side.
After 5.5 years, I gave up my badge. Made more $$$ part time than woring fulltime badge work.
It helped me grow as a person. Thankful for all I've done.

I feel like I should represent the millennials here .... Lots of [bleep] jobs in high school and during college, 21k/yr after college as a university teaching assistant in 2008. That was while I was a grad student. After grad school 11/hr working for a furniture store for 6mo. Then a professional job in my field for several times that, by then I was 25 or 26. Now I’ve got a family and feel more broke than when I was a grad student making $10/hr.

I did two summer internships as a mechanical engineer at a Shell refinery in the Bay Area and was offered $30k a year prior to graduating. This was 1985 and one of the best decisions I have ever made was to accept. My youngest son is following the same path.