and yes, paid taxes and social security.

i also repaired an old lawnmower and did neighbor's grass in the summer (maybe not so much on the with holdings there)

had to pay taxes.

This was at a brick and mortar shoe shine parlor operated by a sole proprietor. He never was there, and he gave me a key to the place. It was a half block from my house, and I could open and close whenever I wanted to.

This was near a famous international business that had over 10,000 employees a few blocks away, so business was good. I always turned the proceeds over to the owner. He didn't pay me legally half of the time, but I didn't care, because I was walking home everyday with about $80 in tips per day! Big money for a kid.

Guy came in one day and I'm shining his shoes. He started asking me a bunch of questions. Turns out that the guy was from the labor board. He shut me down...he made me lock up and go home. The owner ended up having to pay me something like $800 in backpay for all the times he "forgot" to pay me.

Jesus, for a kid, I made a lot of money on that job!

After that, I worked construction under the table, with no deductions for taxes or social Security. If I remember correctly, that paid $1.85 an hour.

university.

14 at the time. Detassled corn, walked beans, weeded and harvested vegetables and fruits, and cleaned animal pens.

I worked for cash on a lot of farms, but the DeKalb job was the first with a paper check and deductions taken out.

No roller skates or I wouldn't have been hired! 🛼

I have to say, the locals were very generous tippers. I made more per hour doing that, than when I got a "better" job working for a high end retailer.

Seemed like great money at the time. Auto parts store, age 14. Paper route before that.

had to get up very early and put the inserts into the papers.

I remember those dark, cold, snowy January nights.

I spent the first week thinking about how I was going to spend all that money. When payday came around, there wasn’t nearly as much as I thought. There were union dues as well. This was circa 1968.

Pumping gas, checking oil, washing windshields while ogling the skirts at 15 years old for a buck sixty an hour. Prior untaxed pump jockey work for dad at his gas station paid a whopping twenty bucks for the summer of ‘71.

But one Sunday night while I ran out for lunch we had a VIP stop in. But this was in Nashville and spotting country music celebrities wasn’t too rare. Porter Wagoner sans Dolly.

Then it was Children's Bargain Town. $1.60 an hour.

Polynesian restaurant, with flaming drinks with umbrellas. Dishwasher and kitchen worker.

Two weeks of getting screamed at in Chinese was all I could handle. Did develop a love of fried rice and Chinese chicken wings, still probably the best I ever had.

that I was fired. Working continues were bad.

I didn't care; I didn't like it anyway. I wanted to quit, but thought I'd get in trouble at home if I did, so they really did me a favor by firing me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it (because it's true!).

were working the cash register. which made me nervous.

It was while a student at San Francisco State University many years ago.

It was a horrible job, it paid $1.25 an hour.

And some wonder why I receive so little on SS today. Its because I worked one too many jobs of this ilk; low low pay.

If you worked four or more hours, you got a free meal which was a hamburger. I started getting tired of hamburgers so I would have the cook just grill up the hamburger patty and then cover it with the mushroom sauce and a baked potato on the side - Salisbury steak without it really being Salisbury steak. That mushroom sauce was so good. I never got tired of that combination. I still make this for myself, although I have tried and failed to make a mushroom sauce as good as Bonanza’s was.

The assistant manager got one digit wrong in my Social Security number when I was hired and it took me a very long time to get that corrected.

Thank you for posting these types of questions every day. They are really fun to read! 😃

An hour to flip burgers.🤪

My uncle was my boss.
His most often remark to me:
"I'm taking a 10 minute break for the next 20 minutes, see you in a half hour."

When I was 16.

complained as the lines were long.

as a puller and scorer for the trap shooters. This was in the late 70’s. I made $3.10 per hour plus tips. I wasn’t old enough to drive so my dad had to drop me off and pick me up. It was a good job for a youngster. I sat in a chair and got a great tan all summer long.

Age 16 in 1969 under what was called Youth Opportunity Corp (YOC). Paid $1.65 / hour and $106 take home every two weeks after taxes and other deductions.

Only did it so did not have to spend another summer working in father's gravel quarry.

Ended up a career Fed age 19 and started university month turned 21. Worked at USFS Research Lab then in Berkeley while at school. Post BS worked on two different Ranger Districts and the Feds paid me to attend two programs for Fed employees for another 30 grad units. Quit USFS age 33 when had satisfied time owed Feds for the two programs.

45 Cents an hour. I wasn't a waitress at the counter because I always forgot something in an order.
It felt so good to have Mad Money. When you look at my Social Security history, my payments in were
little, but I was contributing. Once, one of Social Security agents brought up the small size of the
amounts. I told him my contributions from Woolworths and later the Bank came from what was
called the Pink Ghetto.

This short video is exactly what I did....busting seams with a steam iron. It is the last position in the assembly line. I did this one summer and saved enough ($250) to buy my first car a 55 Chevy.

https://youtube.com/shorts/G0hF3SzP7cw?si=bkLLNvmw_j2LUXyn

Glad you got a car out of the deal!

With my co-workers, and maybe most importantly that I needed to get an education. As far as the car, I was hot rodder and in 1965 the '55 was the perfect car - I learned to on cars, fix things, and they carried through for the rest of my life.

...for a local TV/radio station when I was in high school in 1964.

Really a weekend helper to the full-time janitor & a big banquet hall.

We were paid 1/2 of a Second Lieutenant’s pay, from which taxes & FICA were withheld. Half of what remained was held in a savings account that we had no access to. That was actually a good idea. The money was released to us upon graduation, where we quickly discovered a lot of unexpected expenses associated with transitioning to real officer life.

My job prior to that was at a 60,000 bird chicken factory (no way would you call it a farm if you saw it). I picked/packed eggs, shoveled chicken manure and shot rats for a bistering $1.25/hour. No taxes were withheld.

My shift was 4 till 11 three nights a week and 7am till 3 pm on Saturday. $1.65/hour to sweep, mop and wax floors, clean window and other chores as needed. It paid for a lotta good times and expenses for my ‘66 Beetle. Even managed to save a little for college!

The hospital found it cheaper to hire 2 high school kids than to hire I full time adult.
Added benefit: I met and dated for a couple years the super hot college chick who worked in the snack bar. Also met some very interesting patients!

my first check was drawn on their parent club, the Chicago Cubs. I was outraged that they took 9.82 out in Taxas and Social security.
My first check (12.00) was a stipend for singing for a Roman Catholic Church in which I got paid 20.00 per Sunday

would get way more.

I filled in for people who went on vacations. It was a summer job. I was 16. Before that I edited and typed letters and answered the phone in my dad’s office.

movie theater. I picked up trash and cleaned the lobby and restrooms.
We watched a ton of great movies for free back when they still made them. And got discounts on concessions.
Good times!

My cleaning was done the morning after the show.
There was plenty of that going on during the show however!

It was close to the W&OD bike trail so we made lots of sandwiches for the cyclists passing through. I was 14 or 15.

I made $1.00 an hour working breakfasts and banquets 1965-1967. I don't remember how much came out for taxes. The only jobs I'd had before that were as a substitute organist in churches in DC. I'd get a check, but I don't think taxes were taken out. I did pretty good for a few years before college.

for a whopping &1.35 an hour.

Worked there off and on through high school. Used to open the shop, get the ovens up to temp, get the cash register balanced for the day, then go to school. Started about 3am. I was the only kid that could get up early and want to work. Ahh the good ol days.

I showered in a waterfall. No electricity. It was wonderful.

I worked mainly nights and weekends for about two years but I enjoyed it. Then I got a job at K-Mart in the Jewelry department. Again, I enjoyed the job even through it was 48 hours (8 hours of overtime) a week. It enabled me to share an apartment with a friend. After two years, I joined the AF and retired after 28 years.

It was as a busboy at a large, family-style seafood restaurant for $1.40 an hour.

I later segued into oyster shucking, which was considerably easier.

The despised history teacher came in and absentmindedly put some gum in his pocket and got arrested for shoplifting. Better than the wages.

I was made a supervisor in my teens because I was one of the few who could manage multiple lines and remember how to answer all the accounts.

I ended up getting fired because the manager was embezzling from the company, and I was starting to grow suspicious of his actions.
He fired me before I could put the pieces together.

He was arrested shortly afterwards.

Do they even have answering services anymore?

press 2 for this. I like talking to a real person.

For some anniversary of the founding of the chain, the had a special throwback pricing campaign my last summer working there. Regular hamburgers were only 15 cents. It got pretty crazy because people would be ordering dozens at a time. It was the very first fast food restaurant in our small town, so it was very popular. A McDonald's eventually opened several months later.

Typically, someone would order a big sandwich like the "Big Shef" (Big Mac clone) or "Super Chef" (think Whopper), but with the sale promotion they would order half a dozen or more 15 cent hamburgers. So, instead of having to make a couple sandwiches per order , you had to make a dozen, so we were hopping back there in the grilling area. People would buy all kinds of extras to feed to their dogs, or start throwing them at each other in the parking lot. Worked there a year and a half before going away to college.

Management looked the other way if we decided to make our own food on the side, so we made some custom off the menu creations for our own meals without having to go through the front counter and pay for them.

grilling and fries were concerned. I smelled like grease. Couldn't wait to get home and take a shower.

at Ponderosa.

I think minimum wage was $4.25 and because I was a tipped server I made $2.12 an hour.

And yes, there would be patrons that would order the buffet and not a served meal that thought it was fine to stiff the server who still refilled their beverages and removed the used dirty dishes.

Summer job, working 40 hrs/wk doing keypunch….a job that certainly no longer exists

Then in about 6 months I was promoted to a senior file clerk. Personal Accounts asked me to be a junior underwriter in their department, and they promoted me to the computer division when the company automated. From start to finish I was there for about 6 years.

Lotsa fun working downtown but today, I don't think I'd recognize it. From what I understand the Carson Pirie Scott & Co building is now a Target store, and Dump tower stands where (IIRC) the Sun-Times building was.

School and College. Got to drive a fork-lift! Parents never told me about taxes/SS deductions and I remember being shocked to see my first paycheck and how much was taken out.

I was 15. I served costumers, took cash, made change. The smell of the grease was with me all summer, in my clothes, shoes, hair. No matter how much I washed my hair the smell stayed. I still hate donuts.

fries and burgers. Yuk.