If anyone were to listen to any of the media pundits, one would surmise that a majority of the United States workforce earns the minimum wage. As unions, anti-poverty activists and liberals constantly purport the false notion that the country needs to lift the minimum wage in order to end poverty, new data from the Federal Reserve suggests that only a very tiny number of workers earn the minimum wage.
According to the U.S. central bank, there are 550,000 workers over the age of 25 that are currently earning a minimum wage, or, 0.4 percent of the 300-million population in the U.S.
This has prompted Michael Carr of Newsmax to ask the following question:
“Even if the low wages of 0.4 percent of workers is a serious problem, should we mandate a solution that could force some businesses to close? That would create worse problems for the newly unemployed that would then make $0 per hour instead of $7.25.”
Economist Murray Rothbard likened the minimum wage to “compulsory unemployment.” Despite the plethora of data highlighting the unintended consequences and ramifications of raising the minimum wage, there are still large amounts of people in favor of the racist and backwards law.
bad math! a bunch of BS!!! you can’t use a base of 300m population,,,stupid! must only use employed workers over 25?
I agree with J Griffey. From the information provided in the article, there is no accurate or relevant conclusion that can be drawn about the impact of the minimum wage on poverty. Not only that, Mr. Moran has inserted quotes out of context in a seemingly intentional effort to dramatize an obviously erroneous point-of-view.
Here are some real numbers from a Pew Research Report (www.pewresearch.org). These numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
“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?
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, 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.
That group represents 4.3% of the nation’s 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’t include salaried 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 than the federal standard; people who earned the state minimum wage in those jurisdictions aren’t included in the 3.3 million total.)
People at or below the federal minimum are:
Disproportionately young: 50.4% are ages 16 to 24; 24% are teenagers (ages 16 to 19).
Mostly (77%) white; nearly half are white women.
Largely part-time workers (64% of the total).”
So, 3.3 million hourly workers earning less than minimum wage with 1.8 million of them exempt from minimum wage requirements leaving 1.5 million who are impacted by changes in minimum wage rates.
And, as you would expect, many of those earning less than minimum wage are young (50% are 16-24 years old) and many are part-time workers (64%).
The bottom line is that at 2.6% of all wage and salary workers, those earning minimum wage or less represent a very small portion of total workers but this is still more than 6x bigger than Mr. Moran would have us believe.