Who actually earns $7.25 an hour, that is, the federal minimum
wage?
It turns out less than 1 percent of Americans are working on
the books for minimum wage, or less. There’s a lower minimum for certain
categories of workers like restaurant employees who earn tips.
There are about 3 million folks in the U. S. making minimum
wage or less—all other workers are at higher pay scales in their companies or
work in states that have set a higher minimum.
Who are these minimum wage folks? The WashingtonPost.com says most of them are “disproportionately young, female, part-time, Southern
restaurant workers without a high school degree.” Half of them are under
25.
States
with the highest percentages of minimum wage workers are Arkansas, Indiana,
Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.
In
case you’re wondering, 40 hours at minimum wage will put $290 (gross) on your
pay stub—that’s about $15,000 a year before taxes.
Confession:
I think the minimum wage laws are a bad idea. They distort normal calculations
of economic value in the marketplace. I am inclined to support the notion that
a business whose employees qualify for welfare should be required to reimburse
taxpayers for those welfare payments—I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue that
welfare payments enable those workers to avoid starving or skipping health
checkups for their babies while accepting the low wages from the employer.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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