October 12, 2011
BUSY WORK FOR SPOUSES:
Families Don't Depend on the Minimum Wage: The data are clear: In most cases minimum-wage earnings are only a small fraction of family income. (BRADLEY SCHILLER, 10/12/11, WSJ)One of the striking findings was that most adults who worked at the minimum wage did so for a relatively short time: Over 70% of them had no further minimum-wage job after two years. Almost all them held higher-paying jobs at some point, including ones they held while working at another that paid a minimum wage.
The family status of these adults is critical to the debate about "good jobs for everyone." In 1998, 30% of adult minimum-wage workers in the survey were single parents (mostly female) and another 23% were married with children still at home. These are the two demographic groups that are of greatest concern in the debate over income dependence. The rest of the adult minimum-wage workers were married without kids at home (22%) or single (25%).
Single parents are clearly the most vulnerable. Every year the Census counts millions of them, many working at minimum-wage jobs. But it is important to recognize that these are not the same single parents every year. Three out of four of the single parents working for the minimum wage in 1998 were no longer single parents in 2006. They moved in and out of two-parent households frequently.
If we focus on two-parent families in which one parent holds a minimum-wage job, the obvious question is whether the spouse also works. The survey data reveal that the answer is overwhelmingly "yes": Nine out of 10 married-with-children minimum-wage workers have a working spouse. Even more revealing is how much income that spouse earns: 40% of those spouses earn more than $40,000 a year. Another 27% report spousal earnings of $20,000-$40,000.
None of these households is in poverty.
Posted by oj at October 12, 2011 9:05 PM
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