[dradernh]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

In the late '60s minimum wage in California was $1.65 an hour. That's what I got working at a grocery store bagging groceries in high school. There's no way that was a livable wage. I lived at home but there was no way I could have lived on my own. When I wanted to make more, I found jobs that paid more with more skill required and more responsibility. At the time we thought of it as entry level employment to get some experience working. You've got to start somewhere.

I don't have a suggested solution to the current situation. I'm just saying that people have to start somewhere if they don't have experience and/or work skills.

I think $1.65 is what I was making as a postal carrier in San Francisco in late-'66 to mid-'67. IIRC, it worked out to around $400/mo. I shared a house in the Haight with some other people and lived quite well on it. My share of the rent was $35/mo. Food and gasoline were pretty inexpensive then, too. I was able to save a fair bit of that income.

Homes in the Richmond and the Sunset ran $25-30K; a mortgage payment would have run ~$125-150, roughly the same as rent. That's if you could get a mortgage; it was before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had nationalized the rates and the market. Today, of course, most of those homes cost well over a million dollars.

I left the P.O. after six months for a job in a computer room that paid closer to $600/mo. That's around $67,500/yr. in today's dollars. Money went just a tad further in San Francisco in those days!