{"id":20093,"date":"2014-09-08T12:34:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T17:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/who-makes-minimum-wage\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:45:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:45:50","slug":"who-makes-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/09\/08\/who-makes-minimum-wage\/","title":{"rendered":"Who makes minimum wage?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"federal<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Given the continuing campaigns by unions, workers, politicians and others to raise the federal minimum wage, it bears asking: Just who are minimum-wage workers, anyway?<\/p>\n\n

Perhaps surprisingly, not very many people earn minimum wage, and they make up a smaller share of the workforce than they used to. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>, last year 1.532 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour; nearly 1.8 million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others), for a total of 3.3 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.<\/p>\n\n

That group represents 4.3% of the nation\u2019s 75.9 million hourly-paid workers and 2.6% of all wage and salary workers. In 1979, when the BLS began regularly studying minimum-wage workers, they represented 13.4% of hourly workers and 7.9% of all wage and salary workers. (Bear in mind that the 3.3 million figure doesn\u2019t include\u00a0salaried workers, although BLS says relatively few salaried workers are paid at what would translate into below-minimum hourly rates. Also, 23 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have higher minimum wages<\/a> than the federal standard; people who earned the state minimum wage in those jurisdictions aren\u2019t included in the 3.3 million total.)<\/p>\n\n

People at or below the federal minimum are:<\/p>\n\n