5 ms·

One reason could be because almost nobody makes minimum wage. In 2017 just over 2% of workers made the minimum wage. When you only look at full time employees

One reason could be because almost nobody makes minimum wage. In 2017 just over 2% of workers made the minimum wage. When you only look at full time employees, it's less than 1%. When you include only people over 25 it's even less. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm It's interesting how few people know this. When you ask people to guess what percent of people make the minimum wage, you'll likely hear estimates that are 10x or 20x higher than they really are.

asdff 7y ago
When I had a burger flipping job, the automatic yearly raise was like a dime an hour. So unless you were a new hire, hardly anyone at burger flipping jobs right now are making minimum wage.
quakingaspen 7y ago
I think the confusion you're talking about when you guess that people will over-estimate the number of "minimum wage workers" is due to slippage between the term "minimum wage" and "federal minimum wage". There are 29 states that have a state minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum wage [1], so if we defined "minimum wage worker" as someone worker working at their state's minimum wage, then we'd be including far more (probably >100% more) people in the category. [1] https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/ https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/
cheriot 7y ago
Minimum wage affects the pay of people earning close to it. When a business decides it can make more money by hiring better workers, they have to pay more than the competition.
drjesusphd 7y ago
One can read that as "The minimum wage isn't doing its job anymore and needs to be increased."
AlexandrB 7y ago
When I started my first job flipping burgers I was paid “over minimum wage” ($6.50/hr at the time). My pay? $6.51/hr. So yes, I’m sure there are not that many people “on minimum wage”. I think a more relevant metric might be: what % of people saw their pay increase when minimum wage went up.

asdff 7y ago

When I had a burger flipping job, the automatic yearly raise was like a dime an hour. So unless you were a new hire, hardly anyone at burger flipping jobs right now are making minimum wage.

quakingaspen 7y ago

I think the confusion you're talking about when you guess that people will over-estimate the number of "minimum wage workers" is due to slippage between the term "minimum wage" and "federal minimum wage". There are 29 states that have a state minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum wage [1], so if we defined "minimum wage worker" as someone worker working at their state's minimum wage, then we'd be including far more (probably >100% more) people in the category. [1] https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/ https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/

cheriot 7y ago

Minimum wage affects the pay of people earning close to it. When a business decides it can make more money by hiring better workers, they have to pay more than the competition.

drjesusphd 7y ago

One can read that as "The minimum wage isn't doing its job anymore and needs to be increased."

AlexandrB 7y ago

When I started my first job flipping burgers I was paid “over minimum wage” ($6.50/hr at the time). My pay? $6.51/hr. So yes, I’m sure there are not that many people “on minimum wage”. I think a more relevant metric might be: what % of people saw their pay increase when minimum wage went up.