Government survey data shows that, during more robust economic times of the 1990s, about a fifth of minimum-wage workers were still in that bracket after a year; today it’s closer to a third. What’s going on? In part, it’s due to the long, hard climb out of economic recession in the past few years, and well-documented poor wage growth during that time.
However, more people may be stuck in minimum-wage jobs for longer periods because of a perceptible decline in collective-bargaining power and private-sector union jobs – especially for unskilled and less educated workers – in the past 20 or 30 years.
With a national increase in the minimum wage a stated priority of the Obama Administration since 2009, but unlikely to become law before the President leaves office, a number of states and municipalities around the country are raising wages locally. Still, contrary to popular belief that most individuals flipping burgers are teenagers and/or immigrants, more than half of total minimum-wage workers in 2014 were over age of 25, while nearly a quarter were over 40.
A majority of them are male, have children, want to support themselves, and are more educated than their counterparts during the 1980s and ’90s. Not surprisingly, the older the employee, the more difficult it becomes to move up the ladder from low-paying work.