| Sumario: | Empirical evidence from the March 1985 Current Population Survey suggests that people earning the minimum wage are not necessarily poor. Whether a minimum wage earner was poor in March 1985 partly depended on the employment status and number of his family members. Although the likelihood of being poor was higher for workers with low wage rates, a majority of the workers paid at or below the minimum wage had not been poor in the previous year. Minimum wage workers were employed for fewer hours and more sporadically than other workers but were as likely as other workers to be in families with other wage earners, thereby boosting their standard of living. For families in which the minimum wage earner was the only jobholder, however, the poverty rate was 44.5 percent, compared to 7.9 percent for homes in which a minimum wage was supplemented by other salaries.
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