Too few people earn the minimum wage for mass unemployment to follow from this rate.
FORBES: Greg Mankiw's Excellent Question: Why a $9 Minimum Wage? Why Not $90? Or 90 cents?
As a result, there are 4-5 times more people currently unemployed or who have given up looking for a job than earn the minimum wage.
FORBES: The Minimum Wage: Putting the First Rung on the Ladder of Success Out of Reach
The 3% who earn the minimum wage tend to be people in special circumstances, the most important category of which are people with very low skills, little job experience, and sometimes even poor English skills.
FORBES: The Minimum Wage: Putting the First Rung on the Ladder of Success Out of Reach
Under 5% of the US wage earners make the minimum wage or less, which means that since wage earners only represent a bit over half the total work force (the rest are paid a fixed salary), those who earn the minimum wage make up less than 3% of the total work force.
FORBES: The Minimum Wage: Putting the First Rung on the Ladder of Success Out of Reach
Rapid population growth, mainly, says Krugman. (Since 2007, the number of working age residents grew by 6.6%, nearly twice the national average.) Krugman also points out that some 10% of Texan workers earn the minimum wage or less, and a quarter of Texans have no health insurance, the highest rate in the country.
In India, for example, enforcing a simple commercial contract takes 56 procedures and nearly four years, notes the World Bank, while in Venezuela, workers who earn less than 1.5 times the minimum wage can't be fired.
If today's study is correct, far more - around 20% - earn somewhere between the minimum and a living wage.
Working full-time on the minimum wage you can earn about 53% of the median UK wage.
But is it really the national unemployment rate that is troubling Mr. Cunningham or the fact that the largest group of employers of minimum wage workers happens to be the restaurans and fast food industries where Mr. Cunningham happens to earn his money?
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