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 ter

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/