Then: Minimum Wage Now: Minimal Existence

Then: Minimum Wage

For Sale:  $20,500

Now: Minimal Existence

For Sale:  $25,000

$1.25 an hour.  Wow.  I was making money.   It was 1964 and I had my very first job working at Travel Town in Griffith Park.  It didn’t matter that I was scared to death that first morning.  Of both working with the public and my very demanding twenty-five-year-old boss.  She was tall, blonde and so much other older than I.  Worldly, sophisticated and she could work the cash register and give out change without having to count on her fingers!

Somehow I make it through that first day and came home to our usual Sunday steak dinner and the Ed Sullivan show.  I sat across the table from my younger sister, knowing that I had passed into a new realm, one that she wouldn’t reach for a few years.  I was little bit more mature.  A little bit full of myself.  But just a little.

That first day on the job gave me a taste of the future.  A future I wanted to jump into, but one I was still a little afraid of.  Of course, my parents told me not to worry.  And to remember to always save for a rainy day.  But what did they know?

As the summer passed, my bank account grew and the fear of that first morning fell away with my adolescence.

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The difference is the minimum wage has increased significantly.  It is now $7.25.  Which is about a 580% increase.

But in relation to the costs of everyday items such as postage stamps which have gone from .05 cents to .44 cents (an 880 percent increase) and gas which sky rocketed from .30 to over $4.00 (1,000 percent) the minimum wage has barely caught up.

Cars today cost what a home did back then.  Back then the average yearly income would qualify for today’s low income housing.

But then some things haven’t gone up that much and actually are coming down, with the economy the way it is.  Milk averaged $1.06 in 1964 and has only increased about 100% and the same goes for eggs and bread.

But who can live on eggs and bread alone?

Today’s young adults not only face the fear of entering the workplace but of finding jobs where they can actually support themselves.

I guess if I knew back then what I know now, I’d have planned better for my future.  But as young adults we know everything, don’t we?

It’s not until we get to be much older that we realize how smart our parents are.  It’s not until we turn into them, that we realize they were right all along.

So, the cost of living may have gone up 1,000% but one thing that hasn’t changed is the parent/child relationship.

It’s still based on 100% love.