About five years ago, the federation joined with local community groups mobilizing to improve working conditions for car washers, mainly immigrants sometimes paid less than the hourlyminimumwage and largely relying on tips.
Some have argued that increasing the minimumwage might reduce employment but still redistribute wealth to poor workers because their increased hourlywage might compensate for a reduction in employment.
That of course refers to the old minimumwage of course: but there were about 1.9 million workers, or about 2.5 % of all hourly paid workers, who got the minimumwage or below.
Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly-paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the Federal minimumwage or less.