I expect some people may take issue with "In the current US marketplace", including me, but I don't have enough info at hand to comment, so I won't!

But, I will note, according to https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_minimumwage.htm, the current minimum wage in California is either $10.50 or $11.00 per hour, and so yes, that's pretty terrible.

Note to mention…

>We scraped together only about $9.00 per hr for our eight hours of work, even before accounting for the cost of gas and the time we saved by working as a group.

Note the "we" and the "even before accounting for the cost of gas". I think they meant $9 per hour for the group, which means that's less than $9 per hour per person. Also, that doesn't include the cost of fuel or wear and tear on the car.