Kerry is talking about raising the minimum wage. I see posters here mention it from time to time. What I wonder is, what percentage of wage workers actually makes minimum wage? Most jobs I see that are “minimum wage jobs” never pay minimum wage. McDonalds near me starts at $7/hr. So who has these jobs?
I’ve worked for a quarter over minimum wage in several jobs. The “university” minmum wage is $5.50 around here.
I make more than that now because I have a 40 minute commute, but the difference doesn’t make up the gas money I spend, so I practically make minimum wage.
Waitstaff (some even less), some haircut professionals, and I’m guessing anyone who stands to make a significant amount from tips in general.
Per citation:
“http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1603”
Also, from:
“http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefaq”
We learn that:
While I cannot provide a cite, my impression based on the googling I just did is that most jobs paying minimum wage are in retail, agriculture or food service.
Small buisnesses, most burger flipping places, jobs ment to be stepping stones to better jobs, or jobs taken by semi retired senior citizens.
Actually, you have to remember, A lot, if not all, states have minimum wages above the national. Here in Oregon, for example, the minimum wage is $7.05 and in January will increase to $7.25.
I do. And Arkansas doesn’t have a higher minimum wage than the national one. I make 5.15 an hour. Yup. But, I don’t have to drive, since it’s on-campus. And I sit on my ass most of the day.
Thank you very much, Jonathan. 5.9% of the workforce earning the bare minimum… wow.
Well, that’s not what the cite said, it said that that many would benefit from having it move to 7. Still… an impressive number.
I notice that you live in Massachusetts, erislover. You live in a state with a higher than average cost of living. In such states, very few people earn minimum wage. In states with lower than average cost of living, more people earn minimum wage.
Substitute school teachers (where I live) their take home pay for a 8 hour workday is $42.00 before taxes. With a college degree they pay $45/day. A teaching certificate earns you another $5. That’s a whopping $50/day for a full time certified substitute teacher. Less than a $1000/mth. see footnote
Starting full-time (contracted) teachers pay is $23K/year.
Now you know why I quit teaching. 
*The school district has a habit of hiring full time subs instead of contracting teachers to work. I know this for a fact because they pulled that crap on me.
I recently read the book Nickeled and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich. She got low paying (although not necessarily minimum wage) jobs in several different cities in America to see if she could get by on the pay from the types of jobs people with few or no marketable skills have to get.
She ended up taking such jobs as have been mentioned (waitress, Wal-Mart) as well as working as a maid at tourist motels, and working for a house cleaning franchise.
I recommend the book if you are at all interested in the subject. It is a good read whatever your economic viewpoint.
Of course, not all of those people currently making between $5.15 to $6.99 an hour would benefit from a raise in the minimum wage - some of those workers would be unprofitable to hire at $7 per hour, and would thus find themselves unemployed.
Whatever the number of workers in the country in unions is the number that would benefit from a minimum wage increase, which is probably a ton. Everyone in a union has their pay based off of minimum wage, and if we raise it everyone gets a pay raise. If a bottom-level employee is making $5 and his manager $7 an hour, well after a minimum wage increase both would be making $7 an hour. This would force the employer to raise the amount he pays the manager, and so on up the chain.
This is why the minimum wage is such a hot campaign issue.
You lost me there, Bob.
I’m in a union, the UAW, have been for over a decade and our base wage didn’t move in 96, which was the last time the minimum was raised, right?
I know a number of cleaning, hotel staff, child care and small business employees who work at or just above minimum wage (usually $6/hr or less). They also don’t get either merit or cost-of-living raises.
When my husband worked as a night auditor/desk clerk, at hotels in a small city he earned minimum wage. No matter how long you had the job, there it was always minimum wage because competition for jobs was heavy in that town. He worked that job about 4 years while I was in college.
You also have to remember that the federal minimum wage $5.15 is trumped on a state level
Also, from here
Huh! Well, that certainly explains my anecdotal information.
Connecting the dots, it would almost imply that more people than that are working “minimum wage” jobs, as people who are making “minimum wage” in states in which the minimum wage is higher than $7 wouldn’t benefit…
-lv
I spent the summer working for minimum wage. I think it’s pretty much safe to assume that, if you walk into a shopping mall, the vast majority of people behind the counter are scrapping minimum wage. Halfway through the summer, I got a raise - ten extra cents an hour!