Posted on 04/15/2024 5:30:40 PM PDT by Morgana
Minimum wage needs to be sent packing. Let the market decide.
Thank God I didn't have to depend on that salary to retire on in 2003.
I was born and raised in Rochester, N.Y. On the main street downtown, they had an awesome shoe store...more top end. The name was Wilbar's Shoes. They specialized in women's shoes, featuring leather shoes, boots, snakeskin shoes, purses, along with fashion accessories. I bought my first leather purse there for $50. That was a lot of money in the late 60's. I kept that purse for years. I also bought a gorgeous pair of multi-colored snakeskin strapped-heel, open-toed shoes. Can't remember what I paid for them at the time. Wilbar's had their own store credit card, and of course I had one.
I did a search for Wilbar's. Apparently it was a Boston based store. Since there was one in downtown Rochester, I'm assuming there were others around. The search came up with an article about the Wilbar's that was once in Worcester, with a photo of the store front. I'll post the link, but want you to know they asked me to turn off my ad blocker, which I didn't mind doing since I was able to access the article, and do some reminiscing:
Awww...thanks Jane. I found some of their retro ads online. They advertised Spanish Toreadors...pumps in different styles. “Hand cut, Hand lasted, Hand stitched, Hand Finished, for $12.99.
Especially after Pharaoh demanded that everyone continue making bricks, but without straw.
Regards,
$2.25 an hour! That was a pipe dream for me in ‘71!
I left that first job after about a month for another fast food job that paid 65 cents an hour! I was in tall cotton!..............
I’m a bit younger than you, but I get your drift. I honestly don’t remember how much it was. I should look it up.
When I was a teenager, jobs were scarce because every teen was trying to get one, and there were millions of us. Every fast food joint had them, practically all teenagers and an adult supervisor and a manager.
Now You see mainly middle aged and elderly people, no teens.
I like within walking distance to Burger King, Wendy’s and an Arby’s and they all have adult crews..........
I couldn’t tell you who works at the fast food joints here in my little town, because I never use them. I can tell you who works at the grocery stores though. Some are teens, and there’s good assortment of ages for cashiers. The managers are pretty varied in age.
Unless your state had different laws for fast food workers, you weren’t being paid the minimum wage in 1971. I went ahead and looked up minimum wages from years ago. I was five cents off on my earlier guess.
Back then, Florida labor law wouldn’t allow minors to work a full 40 hours, so it was part time only. We weren’t allowed to work past 10pm on any school nights.
Plus, restaurants were generally exempt from minimum wage law. Our wait staff made way above minimum wage with their tips............
That’s right. Part time employment only allowed for teens.
Part of the condition of my employment at the department store was from my Dad’s insistence. I was only to work two days a week, and it was in the later part of the evening, say from 5 to 9, so that I didn’t impact the family business very much, or on the weekend.
I am lucky that Dad hired one elderly gentleman, a former Fuller brush man, who became Dad’s right hand man that same year. He was probably the only person that could influence my Dad in any way. My own grandparents had died by then, so this man and his wife became my de facto grandparents. We were fortunate to have them become so much a part of our lives.
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