but no taxes on that meager income. My 1st for paying taxes was as a busboy at a Buffum's department store restaurant. Used that to pay for my college.

The last summer I was working there they had a throwback special pricing on regular hamburgers to celebrate an anniversary of the founding. Regular hamburgers were 15 cents. It was the first fast food restaurant in the town, so very popular.

Instead of people ordering a large sandwich like a Big Chef like (a Big Mac) or a Super Chef (think Whopper) they would order a dozen 15 cent hamburgers. So, instead of making one sandwich, we had to make twelve instead. People were ordering 20 to 30 at a time; it was crazy. They were so cheap, they would buy them without buns for their dogs and even a couple parking lot wars where they would throw them at each other. It was super busy all summer.

I’d say that taxes were taken out but I got everything back + due to EITC that had recently been started.

My first day in the job (slacks, shortsleeved shirt, tie) some old lady knocked over a 1/2 gallon glass jar of molasses. New guy got to clean it up.

I was 13 years old and my dad had to drive me to and from work. I made $3.10 per hour and taxes were indeed taken out. I did receive tips when I pulled a particularly good round, however and we were not asked to declare those.

Now Toys R Us if they're even still around. $1.60 and hour.

It was a real trip. Sundays were the worst. After-church people were the lousiest tippers ever but the most demanding, lol.

Not only was the church crowd lousy tippers, they would let you know how wrong it was to work on the "lord's" day.

I worked on farms since I was ten (weeding beans, detasseling corn, mowing), but the local farmers always just paid us cash.

I got a summer job with a seed corn company when I was fourteen, and actually got a paper check with deductions and the whole works.

golf course- I was the one who called the golfers when it was their turn to start playing 🙂 $1.55 plus free lunch

Certain that the real reason I was tapped b/c the former babysitters got 50 cents an hour.

My second job was as a concourse girl at a bowling alley. That's the person who cleaned off the tables, set up the lanes in between groups, changed the trash. I liked it pretty well.

I was 15, and made $1.35 an hour.

I was a teenager. We would watch the kids play outside from 9 AM until Noon. They behaved themselves, for the most part.

Loved going to Girl Scout camp... getting paid to go was sweet.

My first "real" job was either a meat wrapper at our local coop or gopher at a Datsun dealership. Not sure.

Cleaning the bathrooms after all the kids had gone home was yucky, especially the boys bathroom.

It wasn't much different when I had similar jobs in restaurants. Still lots of pee on the floor and walls, but the vandalism was much worse.

I went from that to refurbishing the worst sorts university student housing.

Oh, the things I've seen...

Second job also a car hop at Steak-n-Shake for 30 cents per hour.

No scanners in 1967. Had to manually punch in the numbers.

$1.60/hr.

A combination of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a burger menu that was basically a McDonald's ripoff.

I was a grunt in the back shoveling coal into the steam engine, or maybe it was churning out chicken from the pressure cookers, I don't remember which.

at a local book / gift store.

Well, assistant to the janitor.
I was 15 and worked M, W, F, Sat, & Sun.
From 6:30 until noon.
The summer before college & for 2 summers after, by lucky circumstances, I was full-time. So, I got paid what the janitor got paid. $4.50 per hour was good money in the early to mid 70s.
In fact, my first job as a chemist at a national laboratory only paid $6 per hour.
(That was why I jumped to industry. Much better money.)

Back in the day many large companies saved a few summer jobs for students. Dad's connections got me the job. About $1.75 per hour, pretty good pay for a high school student.

I got to see the inside passage to Alaska several years before the cruise ships, and one evening they even let me drive the tugboat, which was towing two freight barges.

Best job I ever had, now that I think about it.

That was all one job and I was either a sophomore or junior in high school. Prior to that, I was paid with an acoustic guitar to work in my cousin Steve's music store. He was a one-armed trumpet player and his band, "The Blue Jacks," appeared in the movie Marjorie Morningstar.

The steakhouse sold a steak dinner (minus drink) for $1.65.
I made $1.35 an hour

I was making something like a buck and a half an hour, and yes, taxes were withheld from that.

After a while I got “promoted” to oyster shucker and made a whole dime more per hour.


I remember that I’d calculated that an hour of work equaled about 2 gallons of gas or a quart of beer. That thought kept me from quitting some days.

My parents had to sign a consent form for the summer because of my age. I gt paid a $1.35 an hour. Good experience; highly motivational for proceeding to college.

Favorite comment from a co-worker: “You still here, haole girl? “

There was an exit interview with a woman from the personnel dept. She told me I had a good record and could return any time. I thanked her most sincerely (I don’t burn bridges) and went away thinking equally sincerely that I’d have to be very hungry to work in a cannery again.