Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2005

[Excerpt] According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2005, 75.6 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 60.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 479,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15, the prevailing Federal minimum wage. Another 1.4 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum. Together, these 1.9 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 2.5 percent of all hourly-paid workers. Tables 1-10 present data on a wide array of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics for hourly-paid workers earning at or below the Federal minimum wage