Twenty years ago, a teenager could work a part-time job and walk away with more than gas money. Today, the math doesn't add up the same way. That was the realization of one parent on r/MiddleClassFinance who compared their own paycheck at 16 to their daughter's today — and the results stopped them cold.
The post was bluntly titled: "My kid's summer job paycheck was smaller than mine at 16 and it made me realize how crazy things got." The parent said they made about $8 an hour in 2005 working at a grocery store.
