The Bureau of Labor Statistics has published a report on the characteristics of workers who earn at or below the Federal minimum wage.

According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2006, 76.5 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.7% of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 409,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15, the prevailing Federal minimum wage. Another 1.3 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum. Together, these 1.7 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 2.2% of all hourly-paid workers. The following are some highlights from the 2006 data.

• Minimum wage workers tend to be young. About half of workers earning $5.15 or less were under age 25, and about a quarter of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19. Among employed teenagers, about 8% earned $5.15 or less. About 1% of workers age 25 and over earned the minimum wage or less. Among those age 65 and over, the proportion was about 2%.
  
  
• About 3% of women paid hourly rates reported wages at or below the prevailing Federal minimum, compared with under 2% of men.
  
  
• About 2% of white, black, and Hispanic hourly-paid workers earned $5.15 or less. Among Asian hourly-paid workers, about 1% earned the Federal minimum wage or less. For whites, women were twice as likely as men to earn $5.15 or less.
  
  
• Never-married workers, who tend to be young, were more likely to earn the minimum wage or less than married workers.
  
  
• Among hourly-paid workers age 16 and over, nearly 4% of those who had less than a high school diploma earned the minimum wage or less, compared to 2% of those who had a high school diploma (with no college), and 1% of college graduates.
  
  
• Part-time workers (persons who usually work less than 35 hours per week) were more likely than their full-time counterparts to be paid $5.15 or less (about 6% versus 1%).
  
  
• By major occupational group, the highest proportion of workers earning at or below the Federal minimum wage was in service occupations, at about 7%. Nearly three in four workers earning $5.15 or less in 2006 were employed in service occupations, mostly in food preparation and service jobs. Fewer than 1% of hourly-paid workers in management, professional, and related occupations and in natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations earned at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage.
  
  
• The industry with the highest proportion of workers with reported hourly wages at or below $5.15 was leisure and hospitality (about 13%). About three-fifths of all workers paid at or below the Federal minimum wage were employed in this industry, primarily in the food services and drinking places component. For many of these workers, tips and commissions supplement the hourly wages received.
  
  
• Among the states, Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma had the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below $5.15 (nearly 4%). California and Minnesota had the lowest proportion earning the minimum wage or less (less than 1%). It should be noted that some states have minimum wage laws establishing minimum wage standards that exceed the Federal level of $5.15 per hour.
  
  
• The proportion of hourly-paid workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less has trended downward since 1979, when data first began to be collected on a regular basis. Link

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