General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: FiveThirtyEight: Manufacturing Jobs Are NEVER Coming Back. [View all]hfojvt
(37,573 posts)that is what I was going to pay.
My manufacturing job was making giant satellite dishes from 1993-95
My pay in 1995 was $5.40 an hour. Equivalent to $8.40 an hour today. I think I got some paid holidays, but otherwise the benefits kinda sucked. No such thing as paid sick leave. There was some kind of a 401K that I probably should have invested in, but I was 32 and not going to retire from there anyway (I originally thought I was going to work about 8 months and then my bookstore would support me). After one year of work I got one week of vacation. I cannot remember the health insurance options, the employer did not pay much if it existed, so I never had it.
I also had several manufacturing jobs (3) from 1998 to 2001 - always as a TEMP. Yeah, generally lousy pay and no benefits there either. Although the $8.50 an hour in 2001 is equal to $11.38 today (I had one of the better paying temp jobs, others were making only $7.25) (still $9.71 is not the worst, but it is not all that either)