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You are off by a factor of fifty. That's like confidently announcing that US median household income is 3.4 million, or declaring that the US has a population o
by rsj_hn 6y ago
You are off by a factor of fifty. That's like confidently announcing that US median household income is 3.4 million, or declaring that the US has a population of 16 Billion people. How do you react when people hold such crazy views?
Here is a recent BLS study called "Characteristics of minimum wage workers"
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2019/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2019/home.htm
"In 2019, 82.3 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 392,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 1.2 million had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.6 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.9 percent of all hourly paid workers."
- ultrasaurus 6y agoJust eyeballing it looks like only 25% of the US population lives in states where the federal minimum wage is also the prevailing minimum wage: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state So I'd guess closer to 10% of people make the minimum wage in their jurisdiction (1.9% x 4 + I assume more people make min wage when it's higher) Very interesting though that 3x as many people make below the min wage as actually earn the "minimum" wage.
- rsj_hn 6y agoThose below the minimum wage are exempt workers such as waiters because they earn tips, and I guarantee you that their real income (on average) is much higher than minimum wage, but data is hard to come by as much of that income is unreported. Thus the 2% figure is a generous over-estimate.