More state residents working for less than minimum wage
The number of Pennsylvania residents working for less than the minimum wage rose last year for the first time since 2009, the last time the minimum wage was increased, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
In 2012, there were 108,000 hourly wage workers receiving less than $7.25 an hour, which is the state and prevailing federal minimum wage, and 96,000 receiving less in 2011, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a report issued last week.
Last year’s increase was the first since the current minimum wage was set in 2009, when 119,000 of the state’s 3.3 million hourly wage workers were paid below the minimum wage and 36,000 received the minimum wage. In 2008, 79,000 of the 3.45 hourly wage workers were paid less than the minimum and only 6,000 received the minimum, according to the report.
The only year since 2003 when the number of hourly workers receiving minimum wage exceeded the number receiving less was 2011 when 97,000 were paid the minimum.
However, the greatest disparities were from 2007 to 2009, when the minimum wage was increased.
“In 2007, it increased. That’s why so many people fell out,” said Kara Markley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Labor Statistics office in Philadelphia “That’s why you’re seeing a big difference in those years.”
In 2007, when the minimum hourly wage was increased from $5.15 to $6.25, 66,000 of the 3.43 million hourly workers were paid less than the minimum, and only 3,000 received the minimum, the report said.
Legislation raised the minimum wage to $7.15 an hour on July 1, 2007, and to the current rate on July 24, 2009.
More than half of the people employed in the state are paid hourly wages, and the number of workers receiving minimum wage decreased by 10,000 from 97,000 in 2011 to 87,000 last year, the report said.
About 6.04 million people were employed at the end of last year, according to the state Department of Labor, and 3.45 million were paid by the hour, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The median hourly wage in Pennsylvania fell from $13.49 in 2011 to $13.24 in 2012, last week’s report said.
The 195,000 workers who received the minimum wage or less made up 5.7 percent of all hourly workers last year. Nationally, those receiving the minimum or less accounted for 4.7 percent of the hourly workforce, said Sheila Watkins, the bureau’s regional commissioner.
Of those 195,000 hourly workers, 128,000, or 66 percent, were women. Those women represented 7.4 percent of all women who received hourly wages in the state. Men accounted for 67,000, or 34 percent, of all workers earning the minimum wage or less and just 3.9 percent of all men who were paid hourly.
Of the 1.72 million women who received hourly wages last year, 75,000 were paid less than the minimum wage and 53,000 were paid the minimum.
About 1.72 million men also received hourly pay last year. Of those workers, 33,000 were paid less than the minimum and 34,000 were paid the minimum.