Minimum Wage Workers by Age, Sex and Race

Reading this table

The rows count wage and salary workers paid hourly rates: people aged 16 and over who report being paid by the hour at their main job in the Current Population Survey, about 58 percent of all wage and salary workers; salaried workers and the self-employed are outside the table. At minimum wage means an hourly rate exactly equal to the prevailing federal minimum, $7.25 since July 2009; below means a lower reported rate, which may be lawful (tipped work, full-time students, workers under 20 in their first 90 days, jobs outside FLSA coverage) or rounding in the answer; the report does not separate the reasons. Rates are before tips, overtime and commissions. Number of workers is in thousands; percent distribution is each row's share of the national total in that column; percentage of workers paid hourly rates is the share of the row's own hourly workers at or below the minimum. A state minimum above $7.25 is not counted; the minimum-wage pages give each rate. 2024 annual averages.

Table 1 is the report's summary table: the age and sex block, the race and ethnicity block and the full- and part-time block each start from the same national total, so the percent distribution sums to 100 within each block, not across the table. Full-time means usually 35 hours or more a week on all jobs; part-time is fewer. The race groups do not sum to the total because not every group is published, and Hispanic or Latino workers may be of any race, so that row overlaps the race rows. The finer age bands are on the age and sex page and the state figures on the state page.