Obama Summer Jobs: Used To Work At Baskin-Robbins

Now we might know why Obama doesn’t ‘like’ ice-cream.  Recently during an interview Obama talked about how “he worked his way through college and Harvard Law.” We know that Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama didn’t have much money growing up, but prior to this there hasn’t been much published about how they made money during school.

“Everyone should like ice-cream…except my Dad!”  6 year old Sasha Obama (2:22 minutes into video)

 

Obama’s summer jobs:

·       As a high school student, Obama’s first job was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store. He also has mentioned he worked construction.

·       We know of his summer job between his second and third years of law school at Sidley Austin in Chicago, where he met Michelle, who was already at the firm.

·       The summer before, Obama worked at Hopkins & Sutter, a law firm in Chicago.

·       As a college student at Occidental in Southern California, Obama returned home to Hawaii the summer after freshman year to sell island trinkets in a gift shop.

·       Obama also had a summertime job at a deli counter in Hawaii — making sandwiches.

·       Once in New York to attend Columbia, one summer Obama worked for a private company holding a contract to process health records of police officer and firefighters.

·       During one school year at Columbia, Obama was a telemarketer in midtown Manhattan selling New York Times subscriptions over the phone, wearing a headset. He did not like the job because “he worried that some of the people he called couldn’t really afford the subscription.”

Michelle’s summer jobs:

·       Michelle Robinson Obama worked at what was known then as Bob Goldman’s Book Bindery in 1980-1981 while a Whitney Young High School student in Chicago.

·       Once at Princeton, she worked for all four undergraduate years at the Third World Center on campus, part of a paid work-study program where she started a child care program.

·       During the summers of 1982, 1983 and 1985, she was employed at the Chicago-based American Medical Association as an assistant to the executive director. She was a typist and helped prepare materials for the big AMA fall meeting.

·       But the summer of 1984 brought a new experience for Michelle: She was a camp counselor at the Fresh Air Fund (Camp ABC) in New York state, working with campers from the city.

·       After her first year at Harvard Law, she was a summer associate at the old Chadwell & Keiser law firm in Chicago.

·       The next year, she was a summer associate at Sidley, splitting the summer between the Chicago and Washington offices.

The Obamas complain about their college debt, but they did attend expensive schools. Obama took out $42,753 in loans to pay for Harvard tuition. Michelle signed notes for $40,762 in loans for her Harvard years.

Obama had a full scholarship for his freshman year at Occidental, taking out loans — the best I could get was “tens of thousands” to pay for the rest of his undergraduate school, with some help from his grandparents. At Princeton, as mentioned, Michelle had the work-study grant, got some help from her folks and took out “tens of thousands” of loans to pay tuition.