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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes. Which again is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
Thanks.
Not sure who shit in your Cheerios but it sounds like they had reason for it.
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I understand this to be true as well.
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.
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I’m about the same age as you and both of you guys are remembering incorrectly.
See my previous comment linked below…
https://lemmy.world/comment/3844684
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Minimum wage also didn’t go up to $4.25 for you “in about 6 months” then if you started at the $3.35…
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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