Upon inception it was set at $0.25. It is now $7.25.

  • Gingerlegs@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    When I turned 14, I started working for $3.75 an hour. Minimum wage was $3.25 and I felt damn lucky.

    I’m 40

    • IonAddis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m 40 and min wage where I was was $5.25/hr if I recall. (Non-tipped job, tipped jobs were lower.) A 1 bedroom in my area at the time was about $700. I remembering being SO damn confused as to why someone working 40 hours on min wage wouldn’t even pay for a 1 bedroom after taxes, much less utilities, car, food, etc. I redid the math over and over again, thinking I must be doing something wrong because school talked all about budgets and stuff…

      …but no, school had just failed to tell me that min wage wouldn’t actually cover a real-world apartment in my area.

      It was all particularly stressful to me because I was in foster care in a group home as a teen, and I did work and school at the same time and they were prepping for us to go live on our own…and no matter how I did the math, I couldn’t afford a real apartment on my own EVEN IF someone had been willing to rent to me w/out a co-signer.

    • scottywh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you lived in the US, your numbers (and your memory) are absolutely incorrect.

      Editing to add info:

      Assuming the previous commenter is actually 40 years old and lived in the US, the minimum wage would have either been $4.75 or $5.15 when they were 14 (not $3.25)…

      In fact, minimum wage in the US has never been $3.25.

      https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart

      • Catoblepas
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        1 year ago

        State minimums can be different for certain jobs, and certain jobs are exempt from minimum wage and have a lower set wage. Tipped workers are the ones everyone knows about, but farm workers and others are also exempt.

        • scottywh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That in no way contradicts anything I said.

          The person I was replying to never said they were exempt from minimum wage… They said what they misremembered the minimum wage to have been.

          • Catoblepas
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            1 year ago

            My point is they may have been remembering the minimum as it was relevant to the work they did at the time, not necessarily the federal minimum.

            • scottywh@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It is illegal for a company in any state to pay lower than federal minimum wage regardless whether or not the state’s minimum wage is set lower.

              Full stop.

              • Catoblepas
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                1 year ago

                Jobs that are considered exempt from federal minimum wage can still have a different set state exempt minimum wage that is higher than the mandated exempt federal wage.

                For example, say the exempt wage is $2.75, a state can mandate $3.00 instead.

    • Monkeyhog@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      federal Minimum wage when you were 14, was 5.15 an hour, assuming you are actually 40. It was 2.13 an hour if you were in a tipped position. But it was not 3.25.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Jesus. I’m your age, but my starting minimum wage was $6.50. I thought I was ballin a few years later when I was making $9