A customer overheard me philosophize on what young adults should be paid for work. At a restaurant, our margins are pretty thin so $8 for a guy with no skills and no value is pretty reasonable. If they can be useful I'll bump it up to $10. If they can work with little supervision the sky's the limit!
Of course I'm splitting tips among the hourly workers. They end up with at least $20 for a 4-hour shift, though on the weekends they got over $70 a few times. (If my customers won't tip, I'll bump up the prices and raise wages to compensate.) At the end of the day, they should be bringing in $15-$20/hr once they show me they can do real work. You can't raise a family on that kind of money, but I'm not asking for much.
The customer who overheard me ran his own business. He said he wouldn't hire anyone with experience. He'd rather train young people. His starting wage was $15 for a guy with no skills. Since actual work is way harder than restaurant work, and requires far more detailed skills, I agreed that was a good strategy.
Folks, $15/hr at 40 hrs/week adds up to around $30k/year. If you're still living with your parents, that's good money. I am sure once you learn the trade he'll bump up your pay accordingly. I know these guys bill out at $100 to $150/hr of work, so I imagine if they had a guy that could do the job with little supervision, $50/hr = $100k /year is not unreasonable. That kind of money is enough to raise a family if you're careful with your budget and your wife is cooking home-made meals and watching the kids. I know lots of guys doing just that in our town.
I'm more than happy to pay trade guys $150/hr of work, especially if they do the job right the first time. I don't negotiate with them. I figure the first price is the fair price. If the price is out of my range, I'll let them know I'll contact them when I have enough money to pay for it.
Of course, if they show up to work with a bunch of mexicans, I'm out. Sayonara amigo. I'll hire the guy that hires American workers, not the burrito eaters.
If my restaurant isn't bringing in $1m in revenue a year with something like $300k raw profit, I'm doing something wrong. I'm more than happy to share my revenue with people who are worth hiring to do jobs I need done. I hire local as much as I can!
This is in rural Texas, by the way.
Unfortunately after taxes, and having some type of health”care” coverage, you’ll be lucky if you have 20k to live on for the year. If you actually have to use the health insurance, your average deductible depending on plan will instantly knock you down to 17-15k to live on. Even if you live with your parents, if you have the bare minimum reliable vehicle with no car note with liability just to keep ZOG off your back, that’ll knock you down another $500-$1200 a year depending on age, and where you live. If you have even a modest car note, that means you have to have full coverage, so you can instantly double your insurance price on top of adding said car note. Then there’s fuel prices. Your phone bill on the cheapest end will be at least $250 a year. Then there’s possible food, utilities, and rent bills depending on how much your parents let you slide on.
All in all, I’d say if you make 30k a year, the average person that is still able to live with family would be extremely lucky if they have more than 7-10k TOPS left for any extra curricular activities(sanity), savings, and emergency funds. I’m likely being very generous, and forgetting things. Now, with all that said, we’re only talking about working 40HAW, and you can always try to fit something else in to supplement for more money, but that seems harder to do today than in the past from my understanding, and long term it can really take a toll on your heath especially if you can’t find ways to keep your schedule somewhat regular, and get regular sleep.