15 Million Americans Working at or Below Poverty Level
Wages are weak across the board-according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the wages of most U.S. workers, when adjusted for inflation, declined in both 2004 and 2005. A significant portion of the American workforce, though, finds itself in even more dire straits. Approximately 7.3 million working Americans are earning minimum wage, currently $5.15/hour. The minimum wage rate hasn't increased since September, 1997.
In 2005 dollars, a worker needs to earn $6.27/hour to have the same purchasing power $5.15/hour brought in 1997. Millions of Americans haven't seen a dime of that increase, and more than 70% of them are adults. In fact, more than 700,000 minimum wage earners in the United States today are single mothers with minor children in the home. In addition, EPI estimates that more than 8 million additional workers earn within $1/hour of the minimum wage. Those workers earning minimum wage to $6.15/hour and working a 40 hour week 52 weeks a year earn between $10,712 and $12,792 annually.
These two groups of workers make up more than 10% of the U.S. workforce, while another 7.5 million people are unemployed. Given these numbers, it's not surprising that the would-be bankruptcy petitioners currently being routed into credit counseling are being advised-at a rate of more than 95%--that they have no realistic option but to file bankruptcy.
where did you get the statistics of how many americans are earning minimum wage?
Response: The overall number of minimum wage workers listed came from the EPI study. I believe that the total number is an aggregate of the number of people working at the federal minimum wage (approximately 1.8 million as of the last Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting, which is about a year out of date) combined with those working at minimum wage in the 17 states that impose minimum wage requirements in excess of the federal minimum.