I found my Grandfather's pay envelope in a box of old photographs from September 15th 1938 when he was 20 years old.
He took home a whopping $3.99 after some obscure deductions that were in company code,so there is no way to tell what they were for.
Excerpted from the United States Department Of Labor website is this little factoid:
"On Saturday, June 25, 1938, to avoid pocket vetoes 9 days after Congress had adjourned, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills. Among these bills was a landmark law in the Nation's social and economic development -- Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). Against a history of judicial opposition, the depression-born FLSA had survived, not unscathed, more than a year of Congressional altercation. In its final form, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force. In these industries, it banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours."
From what I have guestimated,Grandpap was making a take home pay of less than $.13 per hour based on a 40 hour shift while working for the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation Homestead Works.Dickey-Boy as we called him continued to work at the same lab for 48 years until United States Steel closed the Homestead Works.Talk about dedication huh?
He quit his college education after only two years and entered the work force after his father was crippled in the same plant under unfavorable conditions. Grandpap was sent to work in the chem lab as they referred to it to test each batch of steel for content and provide instructions to the ladle area for adjusting the alloyed metal contents that were needed to make the steel have the properties that were called for to ensure it was suitable for the required application.
I remember never seeing Grandpap on any major holiday as he worked any available shift that added overtime to his pay. Holidays were a major time to get up to triple time for each hour worked. He would often drive to our home on Sunday mornings after a graveyard shift with fresh donuts and would describe in detail what the heat they had run the night before was,what was added and why it was added and would sometimes have the printed slip like the one passed to the ladle area. What an education it was just by listening that I applied to my later work as a machinist and mechanical engineer.
This is Grandpap's pay envelopeView attachment 22408
Minimum wages after FDR stepped in and mandated $.25 per hour View attachment 22411
Minimum wage in 1968 was one of the highest wages adjusted for 2015 wages ever paid View attachment 22412
I started my first real job at $3.00 per hour at age 18 in 1978.
Here is the minimum wage for the year I entered employment full time.
View attachment 22413
He took home a whopping $3.99 after some obscure deductions that were in company code,so there is no way to tell what they were for.
Excerpted from the United States Department Of Labor website is this little factoid:
"On Saturday, June 25, 1938, to avoid pocket vetoes 9 days after Congress had adjourned, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills. Among these bills was a landmark law in the Nation's social and economic development -- Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). Against a history of judicial opposition, the depression-born FLSA had survived, not unscathed, more than a year of Congressional altercation. In its final form, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force. In these industries, it banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours."
From what I have guestimated,Grandpap was making a take home pay of less than $.13 per hour based on a 40 hour shift while working for the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation Homestead Works.Dickey-Boy as we called him continued to work at the same lab for 48 years until United States Steel closed the Homestead Works.Talk about dedication huh?
He quit his college education after only two years and entered the work force after his father was crippled in the same plant under unfavorable conditions. Grandpap was sent to work in the chem lab as they referred to it to test each batch of steel for content and provide instructions to the ladle area for adjusting the alloyed metal contents that were needed to make the steel have the properties that were called for to ensure it was suitable for the required application.
I remember never seeing Grandpap on any major holiday as he worked any available shift that added overtime to his pay. Holidays were a major time to get up to triple time for each hour worked. He would often drive to our home on Sunday mornings after a graveyard shift with fresh donuts and would describe in detail what the heat they had run the night before was,what was added and why it was added and would sometimes have the printed slip like the one passed to the ladle area. What an education it was just by listening that I applied to my later work as a machinist and mechanical engineer.
This is Grandpap's pay envelopeView attachment 22408
Minimum wages after FDR stepped in and mandated $.25 per hour View attachment 22411
Minimum wage in 1968 was one of the highest wages adjusted for 2015 wages ever paid View attachment 22412
I started my first real job at $3.00 per hour at age 18 in 1978.
Here is the minimum wage for the year I entered employment full time.
View attachment 22413
