Understatment...

[john k]

I recall my father telling me he picked corn for a neighbor  at age 11, had to be standing in the yard when the sun came up, and got a dollar a day and lunch.  If he brought a team it was $1.50.  Early 1920s.  Mid sixties for me I remember minimum wage going  up to $1.25/hour.  Farm laborers didn't always get minimum wage.  My first real job in an auto repair shop about 1969, nearly $4.50 an hour!  After the first year that is. 

[Branson]

In 1969 I went to work at a framing and art store while I was going to college.  I started at $1.85 an hour because I had several years of experience.

[Wrenchmensch]

My first experience earning money began at age 10 shoveling snow from neighbor's sidewalks. I earned $1.85 that first night.  We always had lots of snow, and I kept this up until I was 16 and a senior in High School. I remember, during that last year of snow shoveling, stopping to look up through the clear morning sky at a B-36 flying way overhead, headed west.

[amertrac]

 when I was 11 yrs old my father jobbed me out to a neighbor farm for 25 dollars a month and room . My father kept the money My father was from Germany and when there were two boys in a family the youngest went to work off the farm  while the oldest worked with father. I did not live with my family after that. I worked for the farmer till i was old enough to join the service. bob w.