Hourly wages back in the day

SkiWhiz

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I posted a thread awhile ago telling you that my wife brought home a 1927 Sears and Roebuck catalog. This thing has over 1,000 pages and it looks like there isn't anything they didn't sell back then and the prices of things are unbelievable compared to today. I was wondering what a person would make back then. I was watching something on tv (forgot what now) and they mentioned that back in 1924 a person made 5 cents per hour.
 
i can remember my grandfather telling us one time about working on a government farm making 10 cent an hour, 10 hours a day, back in the late 30s to somewhere in the mid 40s, he got out of the army in 1939, stationed in pearl harbor,
 
i can remember my grandfather telling us one time about working on a government farm making 10 cent an hour, 10 hours a day, back in the late 30s to somewhere in the mid 40s, he got out of the army in 1939, stationed in pearl harbor,
I am a dairy farmer (been one all my life) and it feels like we aren't making much more than that now :mad:.
 
I remember my mom making one dollar a day - she's 86 now. In 1955 I made the minimum wage of 65 cents an hour, I'm
67 now. steve in so az
 
According to my dad; back during the depression (1930's) he and his uncle drove truck every day. They'd leave Elgin, IL in the early morning, drive to Chicago (a good 40 miles), load the truck with produce, drive to Rockford, IL (about another 100 miles), unload the truck then drive back home to Elgin that evening just to get some sleep before doing it again. They each earned $1 per day doing that and my dad said that was REAL good money back then.

My first job, as a kid, was back around 1960 or so. I was a pixie at Santa's Village in Dundee, IL and made around $1.25 an hour. Thinking back I should have asked for more money since I had to dress up in leiderhosen, knee socks, curled toes shoes with bells on them and a felt hat with a huge plume on it. Trust me, it was a sight lots of people probably laughed at because I'd change into my "uniform" then ride my moped to work for about 3 miles and back home in the evening. My parents were really kind to me in that they never took a photo of me in that getup. :lol:
 
I delivered page sized ads to houses back in 1961. I had to deliver 250 at a time on my bicycle. It took the better part of a Saturday. My pay was a penny per ad ($2.50) which seemed like a fortune to a ten year old kid!!!

Dusty
 
yea skiwhiz, my dad wanted to carry on his dads farm, but his mom said no, and sent him off to a tech school, which i guess actually turned out to be the best,i just dont know what this government is doing to us, all this outsourcing, importing stuff we used to make for ourselves, losing jobs, farming used to be big in this country, with respect for the farmers, uh-oh, rambling again, carry on skiwhiz, some of us still appreciate your hard work
 
yea skiwhiz, my dad wanted to carry on his dads farm, but his mom said no, and sent him off to a tech school, which i guess actually turned out to be the best,i just dont know what this government is doing to us, all this outsourcing, importing stuff we used to make for ourselves, losing jobs, farming used to be big in this country, with respect for the farmers, uh-oh, rambling again, carry on skiwhiz, some of us still appreciate your hard work
Thank you I appreciate it.
 
I remember watching "I an a fugitive from a chain gang" movie and after escaping in 1932 making like 15 dollars a week, an apartment was 20 a month.
Funny thing is now that we make so much we feel so bad we have to go green and let the rest of the world start doing what we did so many years ago while we suffer with expensive eco-crap.
GO WORLD!
 
i talked to an old timer (no disrespect intended) one time that said, when asked about the price of gas, he said back in the day he had to work a couple of hours a day to afford a gallon of gas, now he gets paid enough to buy a couple gallons of gas in an hour,
 
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