FORT Koffee Klatch

[brunette trixie]

How is someone expected to live on $7.15 an hour?

Very poorly.

One hour's worth of minimum wage buys less than 2 gallons of gas after taxes, that's pretty crazy.

[Amy Lee]

I can't understand that either. By my calculations people even have ahard time living on $10.00 per hour but it would be a more "livable" starting wage for anything.

Exactly! I'm so pissed that i have no other offers. I'd have to work full time(9hrs) just to make 'something'.

[waywyrd]

One hour's worth of minimum wage buys less than 2 gallons of gas after taxes, that's pretty crazy.

Damn. I remember when I started working, minimum wage was $3.35 an hour. At least that bought 4-5 gallons of gas back then.

[Newfherder]

My first job, in 1977, paid $2.40/hour, which was a nickel over minimum wage.

I had a brush with death this week--I told my sister that her new grandson, like all babies, looks like Winston Churchhill. The generalized observation has been made by many people besides me, but try telling her that!

[just1paul]

My first job in 1975 paid me $2.50 an hour because I was a "Supervisor", otherwise it would have been $2.20 an hour and my standard of living was probably on par what it is today, that is what inflation has done.

[Unklescott]

How did y'all get such high paying jobs to start? I started my first job working for my cousin at a gas station making $50 a week for a 68 hour work week. After a couple of weeks he started paying me $1 per hour. This was in '67, the summer before my senior year of high school. In Sept '68 my next job paid me $1.25 per hour. Yep, movin' on up baby.

[Ellen]

I think my first jobs (that weren't babysitting) in 1976 paid $2.35 per hour. The first was as a maid at Mini Price Motor Inn (yes, it was as bad as you think) in summer; then when I started college I worked in the UWM library. The following school year, though, I got a job as a tutor with the university's Learning Skills Department -- that one was a whopping $3.00 per hour! (the highest that they paid student employees at the time) But at that time, it was enough to pay rent for half of a fairly good-sized two-bedroom apartment (not far from where Gabriel lives) and all my other expenses, including tuition and books.

Then during second semester of that year, I was offered a job as a paraprofessional aide at the German /French Immersion School and made a whopping $7.50 per hour with medical and dental insurance. It felt like big bucks then! Times have sure as hell changed!

[MRD]

I can't remember what my first job paid, but I can remember the first time I broke $1000 a month. Boy did I feel RICH!!! Seriously. I thought it meant, I was in the big leagues. This was over 20 years ago and I thought I had really made it when I hit that $1000 a month mark in my income. Of course, my expenses took over half that amount per month, but still, it was a significant mark for me. Now I think about how I felt and how much everything costs today and it's just funny that I was so impressed with that amount.

[Gutmutter]

I made 50 cents an hour babysitting. That was in the early '70s and I was in high demand so able to charge those high fees.

[canadian_angel]

When I started babysitting, I was making great money! I started at about 5 bucks an hour and it kept going up from there. I think it was because I was in such high demand.