 DATE: Working behind the counter at the Soda Bar in 1965, Joey  Slotnicks character tries to impress a girl by stating his wage as  "a buck fifty an hour". The joke is that to modern ears $1.50 an  hour sounds pathetically low, yet in 1965 it was above both the  national minimum wage of $1.25 and the Californian minimum wage of  $1.30, which are themselves (adjusted for inflation) higher than  both the state and national minimum wages existing in 1999, and thus  more than what a lot of young people working in similar jobs today  get paid.