I had my first factory job in 1962 for $1 per hour.
6 months later I joined the Navy and got $78 per month.
Thank you both for your insight. Perhaps I should give a short synopsis.
About ten days ago, I was rummaging around the back pages of the internet and came upon a complete day broadcast of D-Day by CBS and NBC on archive.org. Was down in the barn working and listening to the broadcast and imagined what it would be like actually listening to this as it unfurled in 1944. So, the mind churned and thus a potential novel. One of the characters is a black woman shipyard worker in Oakland/Richmond, CA, hence my question regarding wages.
Once again, thanks for your input.
Thank you both for your insight. Perhaps I should give a short synopsis.
About ten days ago, I was rummaging around the back pages of the internet and came upon a complete day broadcast of D-Day by CBS and NBC on archive.org. Was down in the barn working and listening to the broadcast and imagined what it would be like actually listening to this as it unfurled in 1944. So, the mind churned and thus a potential novel. One of the characters is a black woman shipyard worker in Oakland/Richmond, CA, hence my question regarding wages.
Once again, thanks for your input.
As I recall, when I was a A/3c in the USAF in 1955, my take-to-the-barracks pay was $40/month. But I lived on base and ate in the chow hall and was able to put gas in my De Soto. I even had money left over to have a few “CC and Sevens” on the weekends in some dive in Panama City.
When I became A/1c, I was really living high on the hog.
Traveled in uniform at half price anywhere in the States and had many more privileges than the average GI has today. The general population liked us. Of course, this was all before the Vietnam War.
So glad I served under Ike.
You can find a minimum wage chart on the web for starters. I believe Fed min wage began in 1938. If it was Navy the records are around for sure. Also try Ancestry. Might try a maritime historical society, local SF libraries, or just do some googling and look for WWII ships. You will find a lot of info that should give you a good start. Also, look for Asbestos lawsuits where sailors were the plaintiffs. Those files will have tons of info including earnings, co-workers, etc.
Withholding of taxes began during the war years. There had to be political discussion on the govt trying to collect two years of taxes in the same year.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2092
I recall my grandmother saying that she earned something like 39cents per hour during the WW2 years in a factory making some sort of components. She was in her 20s at the time, I think. I don’t think this is the information you’re looking for, but it’s the best I have. My grandfather(her husband) was IN the war, and managed to survive to come back and give birth to my mother, and a few others. lol
“The average weekly wage for female skilled workers in 1944 was $31.21; the average for comparable males was $54.65” - See more at: http://m.patriotledger.com/article/20090506/News/305069577#sthash.WZIe6PMf.dpuf
WWII shipbuilders played Santa, worked for free on Christmas Day
http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/military/20041219-2356-shipbuildingsantas.html\
Wages for Trade Workers in the Inter-war Era
http://www.columbia.edu/~jrs9/BNY-WB.html
You might also want to post this question in one of the forums on usmilitariaforum.com.
Just make sure you post it in the right section. A remarkable number of historians, knowledgeable people on that forum. WWII is a real speciality.
Have you posted the question on any other history related forum?
Wages on the homefront were booming during WWII
So much so that FDR put in cost control measures. One of them was wage freezes. Cost controls on prices and rationing were also instituted leading to a booming black market.
So companies began offering “free healthcare” to entice workers and get around the FDR wage controls.
Also - the same with rent control. Rents were going crazy in several cities so these cities put in rent control measures to keep workers.
70 YEARS LATER (after WWII ended) - we still have these programs because politicians found they could buy votes with them.
And these programs have destroyed these “private sectors” sectors so much so that we now have obamacare and millionaires living in 7 bedroom NYC apartments paying $200/month.
All because FDR wanted to control wages/prices during WWII...
If you peruse classified ads for that time period, many ads indicate what the daily or weekly wage is for a specific job. A lot of FReeper Homer Simpson’s postings from WWII have articles about labor disputes during the time period, which may relate what the wage disputes, if any, entailed.
Rosie the Riverter, p. 20
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca3300/ca3393/data/ca3393data.pdf
Finally, on April 1, the conference announced that it had set the
wage for a “first class machinist” at $1.12 per hour, establishing not only a maximum wage for
the West Coast shipyards, but also, since labor costs were deemed highest in that region, setting
a de facto maximum wage for the entire American shipbuilding industry, east and west, merchant
and naval, public and private. In June 1941, wage-stabilization agreements were reached for
shipyards on the East Coast and Gulf Coast and for the Great Lakes yards in July. The Gulf
yards had the lowest wage rate at a nickel below the $1.12 per hour for the East Coast, West
Coast and Great Lakes. The stabilization agreements reached in 1941 were maintained
throughout the war, with just one minor modification: a nationwide 8 cents per hour raise
effective July 19, 1942.56
Years ago, I worked in a smokestack industry that had a few critical jobs during the war. There was a place in the plant that guys had scribbled history making events on the wall with dates. Anyway, the wage I recall was $0.42/hour for a shift foreman. A buck had value then.
There is a book by Derks called “The Value of a Dollar” that will give you also there is a series called “Working Americans” that goes through. Everything from bricklayers to ball players, and the series is divided up by decades.
This seems close to what you’re looking for:
http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/contents/chapter08.html
You may want to study up on the history of labor unions during the war.
Some were agitators, and some included saboteurs.
There were strikes.
It embarrassed the Democrats and the war effort ... but it was the Democrats and communists’ agitators.