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.
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.
Today, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and two U.S. Congressmen have proposed raising it to $10.10. Washington state, meanwhile, recently raised its minimum wage to $9.19 an hour—the highest rate in the country.
That made us recollect our own first job and how much we made. So we posed the question to our friends on the Bellevue Patch Facebook page, and got some fun answers:
- "1st job in 1993 at Imaginarium in Bell Square. Min wage was $4.90 and I made $5.00/hr. I felt awesome making more than min wage!"
- "$7.25 at Pagliacci for my first job in 2007."
- "$4.25 @Carl's Jr."
- "Got you all beat so far ... 1968 ... Kentucky Fried Chicken in California, $1.10/hr."
- "Still Working For It!"
----
Do you remember working for minimum wage? What was it and what did you do? Tell us in the comments section.
