Listen to Democratic politicians and their supporters and you may conclude that raising the minimum 
wage will be a boon to the middle-class. You hear about lifting Americans out of poverty; about a living wage, etc. For example, here is what one union says:
The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009. A worker with a full-time minimum wage job earns just $14,500 annually—a salary that would put a single parent of two children below the poverty line. It is past time to raise the minimum wage to a level that provides working people with economic stability, instead of trapping them in poverty.
Those are the facts, but very few people earning the minimum wage are either working full-time or adult heads of families and the only breadwinner.
That is mostly populist rhetoric. First, we are talking about only 2.6% of the entire workforce at or below the minimum wage As you can see below, the majority of minimum wage workers are young; hardly the heads of families and they are mostly part-time workers. As far as those with an hourly rate below the federal minimum goes, tipped workers must be paid the federal minimum if their tips do not equal $7.25 an hour so counting them as earning below minimum is not accurate.
High-minded sounding rhetoric that appears to solve all kinds of social problems appeals to many people who simply don’t check the facts or consider the consequences. If you want to pay an eighteen year old $15.00 an hour to clean tables or take your ticket at the movies, that’s fine, but don’t complain when it impacts their job or the prices you pay.
While it is not true that low-income people eat at fast food restaurants more than higher income, the bulk of such customers are lower middle class. But it is true that people who rely on food stamps (SNAP), do a lot of shopping at big box stores. So, as prices rise in part in response to higher wages, many of the people benefiting from a higher minimum wage will have to spend more or get less for their money or government benefits.
It’s debatable how extensive this effect will be, but it’s very clear that you can’t manipulate the economy without consequences …. you might want to ask Old Bernie and Old Liz about that. 😏
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).
Who makes minimum wage? | Pew Research Center.
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