I’ve grown weary watching news reports of gangs of losers picketing fast-food businesses on behalf of an increased minimum wage. When they babble their economic ignorance about how they only receive “subsistence-level” wages, while their employers become unbelievably rich, my response is to wonder why the picketers, and their co-whiners, do not pool their resources and start their own business? I then remind myself of how, in my childhood years, I had worked for meager earnings. When I was nine years old, I got my first paper route, which involved my delivering both early morning (before school hours) and afternoon editions of a local newspaper. Such was my Monday-Friday schedule, while I had only one delivery to make on Saturday and one on Sunday. For all of this work, I received about $20 per month in income. This amounted to about a 67 cents per day amassing of “wealth” or, given the time commitment involved, about 22 cents per hour. I greatly enjoyed the work, as it provided me with many hours of independence during which I did much thinking. At the end of each month, I deposited my earnings in a savings account.

During my high-school years, I worked as an usher – and later a doorman – at a movie theater, where my earnings “skyrocketed” to 50 cents – and later 60 cents per hour. It was enjoyable work – which offset the doldrums of schoolwork – and permitted me to combine my sense of independence with the social benefits that came from a work environment. Again, at the end of each month I placed my income in my savings account.

With the help of interest payments I received, my savings account increased to levels that permitted me to use some of these earnings for tuition and book payments when I went to college. After getting married, my wife and I occasionally drew upon such savings during my years in law school. After graduation, we took a summer-long trip to Europe, paid for, in part, by my youthful careers in “journalism” and being a “leading man” in the movies (it was my job, as an usher, to lead customers to their seats).

A number of years ago, I watched a “Dinah Shore” television show on which she had retired big-band singers. One of these vocalists was a favorite of mine, Peggy Lee. A couple of the singers were complaining about some of the “hit” recordings they had made, for which they were paid “only” $50. “Oh, that was terrible,” they moaned; “we were taken advantage of because we were young,” they whined. All except for Peggy Lee, who reminded her colleagues that they now lived very comfortable lives, have nice homes, and have accumulated comfortable levels of wealth, and asked whether they would likely have had such successes had they not, early on, worked for only $50 per record.

One rarely hears voices like Peggy Lee’s any more!

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