How many people in the US have jobs that pay minimal wage?
963297
I cannot tell you how many people who are earning the minimum wage but it is pretty close to the number of people who didn't pay any attention to much in high school.\nWhile that is not completely fair,mostly because it excludes the manual workers still left from the production line jobs which are fast disappearing in the US such as at the auto industry, it does demonstrate a point; you need focus to be able to have a worthwhile future in a civilized country.  Asking others to raise how much you make really doesn't solve the issue.\n\nFor example, when I was 16, I was working at Burger King.  I did that so I had some spending money, especially for dates and the car, should I be lucky enough to borrow it from my father.  When I was there, there were several adults working there full time.  I knew they were making more money than I was and that was ok with me as they worked 40-60 hours to my 15 or so and used it to support themselves.  However, it didn't take a math genius to figure that paying for food, rent and a car with what they earned wasn't going to leave a lot left over.  Hence I was smart enough at 16 to know that even as a manager, it  wasn't where I wanted to be in 10 years.\nNow I confess that after I went to college, I was expecting someone to knock himself over to hire me to do something after I graduated.  When that didn't happen, I had to do a lot of things I really didn't want to do and relearn what I should have already known.  However, in addition, I had enough smarts to know that I had to dig myself out of the hole, not expect someone else to do it for me.  \nIf you need training, go find something you can stand and get trained.  Personally I am tired of all the anti-social attitudes manifested in demanding higher pay for standing in front of a cash register.  Learn how to be nice to people and learn a skill.  It may take a while to finish the training but it will be worth it.\n\nTo answer your question after this long diatribe, for which I apologize, there are way too many people earning minimum wage in the US.  We have fostered the idea that we have the right to a job that will pay us what we want for far too long.
691498
Those jobs don't exist. The illegals undercut and depress wages of American citizens. \n\nAround here there's nothing that pays you more than $6/hour unless you're a salaried person and the jobs that are available for the average citizen are just part time with no benefits. The jobs around here don't even pay for basic necessities.
640705
In San Francisco they have an ordinance so that if you work more than 2 hours a week you get $8.50 minimum wage.\n\nCheck out this link for all of the states data:\n\nhttp://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm
189056
Not a lot, they have horrible lives and horrible pay.
1173001
Some of them make six figures. Check my source for more details =)
510774
Are you still Talking the "JOBS AMERICANS WONT DO" Bullshit.I like millions of other poor americans have done the very work people claim only immigrants do.Ive always done what i has too, to put a roof over my head and food on my table.Yet ive actually worked for less and payed taxes on less wages.Have you ever seen what happens to a $200 check after taxes? I have.It works out to be less than the cash jobs alot of illegals do.Are you blind or do you not even realize there is such a thing as "Poor Americans"
386297
Yes...look at the unemployment rates...pretty low right now.  My organization has 3 professional positions open right now, but we are small.
993656
$3.35\n\n On April 1, 1990 the federal minimum wage was increased from $3.35 per hour to $3.80; a year later it was increased to $4.25, for a combined increase in excess of 25 percent. The latter increase was the 17th since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established the first national minimum wage of twenty-five cents an hour.\n\nThe current minimum wage is $5.15 and was established in 1997.
26525
From the same article linked to by JayNick, \n\nWal-Mart's average wage is around $10 an hour.\n\nAs Tom Geoghegan, a labor lawyer in Washington (and author of Which Side Are You On?: Trying To Be For Labor When It's Flat On Its Back) points out, the relevant number isn't the average, which would be skewed upward by the large salaries of relatively few highly-paid company executives—Scott, for example, receives, by one reckoning, 897 times the pay of the average Wal-Mart worker—but the median. In the Dec. 16 New York Review of Books, Simon Head, director of the Project on Technology and the Workplace at the Century Foundation, stated, "the average pay of a sales clerk [italics mine] at Wal-Mart was $8.50 an hour, or about $14,000 a year, $1,000 below the government's definition of the poverty level for a family of three." That the current minimum wage of $5.15 per hour leaves families even farther below the poverty line is a depressing topic for another day.
835651
You are right; the minimum wage in Kansas is $2.65 an hour. I am almost sure that the federal minimum wage standard applies to Kansas, making it a useless law.\n\nhttp://www.49abcnews.com/news/2006/nov/17/kansas_lawmakers_likely_hear_more_minimum_wage/
361701
alot of AMERICANS could do those jobs if paid a resonable wage (i.e. not 4.50 an hour)\n\nThere are a lot of unemployed American people looking for a job, but not at slave wages
922398
President Bush has been dropping the unemployment rate with his new awesome minimum wage jobs. I'm with Rosanne bar. We need to create a maximum wage, I think that will create more job opportunities. Huge corporations will stop exporting jobs because the cheaper labor in other countries won't help them see more profit. They'll keep the jobs here and maybe pay decent wages. I'm talking 100 mill a year. I think that's plenty for one person.
1159805
Eventually US jobs will be nothing but low paying service jobs. Globalization will accelerate this.
578727
Minimum wage runs around $5.75 or $6 an hour- NOT a livable wage. Congress doesn't care about it since they can go in practically penniless and come out 4 years later a millionaire.
1109536
It is total bullshit.\n\nLast year the federal minimum wage at $5.15 per hour was $3.50 below in purchasing power of what it was in 1968. Today's minimum wage has the lowest purchasing power since 1949 when economic productivity per worker was a fraction of what it is today, when the super-rich corporate bosses had not become hyper-rich averaging over $8000 an hour. \n\nThe last increase to $5.15 per hour was in 1997. Except for one year of restraint, members of Congress have zipped their annual pay grab through the House and Senate every year. Just the increases in that period amount to about three times the annual minimum wage income for millions of American laborers. No wonder poverty has been on the increase. \n\nRest assured, neither the Democratic nor the Republican leadership will stop their annual pay raise. The House already has passed their pay grab. Shame is a rare commodity when it comes to the moral authority to govern. \n\nWhy do we let them get away with such Marie Antoinette values?
283333
Minimum wage is not necessarily a bad thing. Imagine if you will, what would happen if there were no minimum wage. There are a number of companies today that pay there entry level employees minimum wage. (Usual manual labor or low skill level jobs) If there were no minimum wage, these companies would pay their employees less. If minimum wage is currently $5.15/hr I believe. So am employee making minimum wage works 50 hors per week, that's 40 regular hours at $5.15 ($206.00) and 10 over time at $7.725 ($77.25) per hour, then they would earn $283.25 pre week. That's about $1,133.00 per month. Depending on where you live, that's the coast of an apartment... In some places, it not enough for an apartment. Since I live in Central Delaware, let me us this local as an example. \nIncome: $1,133 /mo\nTaxes:  $113.00 / mo (10% based on regular hours)\nStarting Cash: $1,000.00\nCheep, run down one bedroom apartment:  $500.00 /mo\nCar insurance of an old car:                       $ 65.00 /mo\nElectric, assuming low usage:                     $ 65.00 /mo\nHome Phone, assuming no extras               $ 35.00 /mo\nFuel for Car, assuming used for work only   $ 60.00 /mo\nGroceries fro one Assuming frugality           $250.00 /mo\nTOTAL:                                                    $975.00 /mo\nRemainder: (For emergencies, savings, \nRecreation, etc...)                                     $ 25.00 /mo\n\nGranted, that at the end of the year, this person would receive a tax refund of about $5,891.60, but that doesn’t help this person on a daily bases the rest of the year. \n\nNow, consider that these same companies provide an average of a 6% raise per year. (The nation average last Time I checked was just over 3% but I'm trying to make a point) After the employees first year with the company, they would be earning 1,200.98 per month. After 5 years, they would be earning 1516.21 per month. Assuming that the cost of living went up only 2% each year, below the national average I might add, after five years, the employee in question would now have an amazing $436.42 per month unaccounted for. This means that this person could now get basic cable, purchase better groceries. (I'm q single guy and I shop fairly conservatively and I still spend nearly 350 per month on groceries and things for the apartment.) If you include this basic changes to his life style, this employee, after 5 years of working hard would have less then 286.42 per month for things other then daily living. This does not include many of the normal things most Americans enjoy such as a cell phone, internet access, etc. \n\nOkay, that's WITH a minimum wage. Imagine if there was no minimum wage an companies started hiring people at 3.00 per hour. Assuming 50 hours again, that's only $165.00 per week or about 660 per month. That doesn’t cover food and shelter. If these people were to work 2 minimum wage jobs, 40 hours each, they would still only have 960.00 per month.  That still doesn’t cover the basic listed above in this area, and if you think that companies would not take advantage of people this way, you have a lot to learn about American businesses. \n\nMany American companies are not above keeping employees as close to minimums they can. In fact, there are many companies now that reward proficiency and hard work with termination. With the "At Will"\n laws in many states today, if an employee mentions the word, union, they are terminated on the spot, and it's legal. Add to that the fact that these same companies periodically fire members of there senior staff because these people 'make too much money' because they have been around too long and know too much and you have some major unfair business practices. But that is a different issue. My point is that these companies would exploit people to no end if it weren't for the minimum wage law.
270835
Most states all they must leave you with is either min. wage or poverty level wage.  Most states it's not a %, just the limit I just stated.