Minimum Wage Workers by Occupation

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.

The occupation rows follow the Census occupational classification derived from the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification, the same families the occupation pages use at a finer level; the five top-level rows are the major groups and the indented rows their intermediate groups, so each indented block sums to the row above it. The food preparation and serving group is where the tip credit operates: an employer may pay a tipped worker a cash wage of $2.13 under federal law if tips bring the total to $7.25, and such a worker reports an hourly rate below the minimum here even when total pay is above it. The tipped-wages explainer sets out the rule. The industry page gives the same workers by where they work rather than what they do.