Is gasoline a bargain -- check the math, see what you think

Thanks. Looks like one could afford 4 gallons of gas per 1 hr of minimal wage then. Now it's only 3 gallons ($7.25 is the federal MW). Looks even worse if one looks at gallons of milk.

Sounds about right, 4 gallons of gas per 1 hr of minimal wage then.

your numbers make no sense. you could not be making only $0.6/hr, unless you were undocumented (was there any documentation then?) or tip worker. BTW, federal MW is still $7.25.

 

states differ, that's why mine says ma. i see the min. wage was $1.60 in 1968, but i was 14, and perhaps hotel workers had a lower number. or maybe holiday inn was screwing me.

 

I could be wrong, but I think there is some sort of exception for firms that hire workers under the age of -- let's say 16.////

There is some sort of allowance for "training wages." Or there was at one time. Which was lower than the minimum wage.

That is why places such as McDonald's hired so many pimply faced teens. They could pay them less than minimum. If they hired the 40-year-old Rosanne Barrs of the world they had to pay the minimum wage.

Agriculture, I think, had even lower requirements for kids...

 

could very well be. i remember how excited i was to find out that i could get 'working papers' at 14. pocket money!

 

I was more excited to find I could buy condoms....not that I ever needed them....but having that tell-tale circle imprinted on your wallet. A rite of passage for 16-year-olds in my 1970s Southern California beach town.

 

My mother was an accountant at a frozen foods warehouse in Central Washington. Her monthly salary was $500 a month. I can clearly remember $0.19 gas, and her buying it $1 at a time, "A dollar's worth of Regular, please!" That was full service, top off the tires, a handful of S&H Green Stamps, a place setting of silverware, or a glass tumbler to boot. I also remember her hitting the brakes and my head hitting the steel dashboard, raising an egg shaped lump on my forehead.

No undocumented workers back then. They were called "migrants." They got paid by the piece (lug of cherries or bin of apples picked, etc.) where I lived. They never stayed for the winters back then ... Many of them came back to the same orchards year after year and live in what were called, "picker's cabins." Then the welfare state kicked in ...

 

Gosh, now you brought back the memories.

I think I hit my head several times on those steel dashes (might explain some things, HAHA).

No seatbelts. When your parents were making a panic stop, their right arm flew from the steering wheel to across your youthful chest, sort of like a strange railroad crossing gate.

Elvis had some song where he groused about check the oil, check the tires, dollar gas. "no More Monkey business?" don't know, I am more a Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fan....

 

like this?

 

My first official employment as <16 yr old in SoCal was $1 per hr. Maybe we should reminisce about such things.

 

I embrace my geezerhood.

 

I like to remind my compares that every project needs a hairy-eared engineer. They've been around long enough to have already made all the mistakes.

 

i thought we 'were' reminiscing.

 

were you picking lettuce with caesar chavez?

 

At 14, (1966) I was working for my dad in summer at a gravel pit / redi-mix plant for $1 a day. Yea, good incentive to get a real job. At 16 I started floor sanding at 3.50 per hr. at 18 I was making $5.50 per hr, when 4 yr college grads were making 3.25. After working 48 years, I decided to retire at 62.

NO Regrets

 

I'm reminded of the long forgotten, DEC computer museum, a collection of 'junk.' Having history starting in the late 1960s with the IBM 7000 on, I earned a lot of income dealing with different computer generations and have no fondness for going back:

• Fortran - kiss
• Cobol - AGGGHHH!!!!
• JCL - easy money
• assembler - love it!
• strict typing languages - a scam to double and triple programming labor
• Perl - replaced Basic
• OS MFT-MVT, DEC VMS - fun until vendor turned off source code access
• Linux - a cult but source distributed (if you have a brain!)
• c - awkward but usable, nice compilers
• APL - the last sensible command language
• TSO - h*ll, I once had to stop a task because my blood pressure went up too much.

Bob Wilson

 

We had one guy, he was definitely in a league of his own: spent decades in fabrication shops as a detail draftsman, then studied and became a full-fledged structural engineer, in consulting engineering. Sort-of an NCO I guess you would say.

I would hear him councilling junior engineers: deep stuff. And at the same time he would crank out design sketches (in ink), that you could pretty much trace. If I was going to criticize: it'd be that he included too much info, but I guess that was needed when working with raw recruits.

I can remember him checking one my layouts, for running a weight scale calibration chain onto a running conveyor IIRC. What struck me: not only did he thoroughly/quickly check it, he tracked down and sorted out ALL the unknowns, looked up vendors, came up with spec's, for everything.

Anyway, one funny thing: he had a habit, he would lean back in his chair, do a stretch, and it usually went well. But maybe every six months, he would misjudge how far back to lean, end up going right over, @ss over teakettle!

 

First job paid 1.65 per hour. Gas was 70 cents per gallon then quickly jumped to 1.00 dollar due to the first fake "energy crisis" of 1974. We had alternating days we could get gas. Gas trucks were hijacked and fights at the pumps was common for those not adhering to the alternating day rules. It's never gone below a dollar since.............and oh, we had another "energy crisis" in 1978. The claims was that by the 1990's, we would be completely out of oil worldwide, our water supply would be filled with mercury and the Ozone layer would be completely gone. Time magazine and all news papers had us all freaking out. And now, billions of gallons later, we still have oil, the Ozone is still fluctuating as it has for millions of years and water has survived thanks to smart people showing us how to recycle waste. Many of you all my age remember all the lies of the 60's and 70's. What the protagonists forgot is how humankind gets smarter about how we do things (Apple, Windows, Tesla, SpaceX,...........etc). I will continue to have faith in us all, especial the Prius modders!! Who would have thought a Prius would be so dang sexy looking?

 

Us dang whippersnappers missed out!

 

Now, I'm the wrong side of 70, but can remember back in the he 50s UK pumps were charging 1s3d for a UK gallon (8 pints BTW). Well, 1/3 would translate into £0.06/gallon in today's currency.

What's the point of even trying to convert that into dollars. It was cheap even in war-rationed England!