Minimum Wage Workers in Pennsylvania – 2010 (PDF)

In 2010, 206,000 hourly-paid workers in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had earnings at or below the Federal minimum wage, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. (See chart 1.) Nearly 3.3 million workers in Pennsylvania were paid at hourly rates, representing 62 percent of all wage and salary workers¹. Among those paid by the hour, 91,000 earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, while 115,000 earned less². Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that workers earning the Federal minimum wage or less made up 6.3 percent of all hourly-paid workers in the Commonwealth, up from 4.7 percent in 2009.

Chart 1. Employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, annual averages, 2000-2010

According to Current Population Survey (CPS) estimates for 2010, 72.9 million workers in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.8 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage and about 2.5 million additional workers earned wages below the minimum. Together, these 4.4 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 6.0 percent of all hourly-paid workers in the nation.

From 2009 to 2010, 51,000 (32.9 percent) more hourly-paid workers in Pennsylvania earned at or below the Federal minimum wage, with all of the increase occurring among workers paid exactly the Federal minimum wage. (See table A.) The minimum wage in Pennsylvania is equal to the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

Women accounted for 64 percent (132,000) of the hourly-paid workers who earned the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less in Pennsylvania in 2010, while men accounted for the remainder (74,000). While women accounted for the majority of workers in the Commonwealth who earned at or below the Federal minimum wage, their proportion fell from the 70 percent recorded in 2009.

From 2000 to 2007, the number of hourly-paid workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less in the Commonwealth trended downward; however, as the Federal minimum wage increased in recent years, the number of Pennsylvania workers in this category grew.

Overall, employed wage and salary workers earning hourly rates in the Commonwealth had median hourly earnings³ of $13.16 in 2010; nationally, the median was $12.50. The median hourly rates for men and women in Pennsylvania in 2010 were $14.93 and $11.97, respectively. For the nation, the comparable figures were $13.76 per hour for men and $11.83 per hour for women.

Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2010, Texas and Mississippi, at 9.5 percent each, had the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage, followed by Alabama and West Virginia, at 9.3 percent. Other states with shares of 8.0 percent or higher were Louisiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. The States with the lowest percentage of workers earning the Federal minimum or below included Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and California, all at or below 2.0 percent. It should be noted that as of January 1, 2011, 17 states and the District of Columbia had laws establishing minimum wage standards that exceeded the federal level of $7.25 per hour. (See table 1 and chart 2.)

Chart 2. Minimum wage laws in the States, January 1, 2011

Source: U.S. Employment Standards Administration, Wage and Hour Division

Technical Note

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' data on minimum wage earners are derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a nationwide sample survey of households that includes questions enabling the identification of hourly-paid workers and their hourly wage rate. Data in this summary are annual averages.

Minimum wage worker data, particularly levels, for each year are not strictly comparable with data for earlier years because of the introduction of revised population controls used in the CPS. For technical documentation and related information, including reliability of the CPS estimates, see www.bls.gov/cps/documentation.htm.

It should be noted that the presence of a sizable number of workers with reported wages below the minimum does not necessarily indicate violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as there are exemptions to the minimum wage provisions of the law. The estimates of the numbers of minimum and subminimum wage workers presented in the accompanying tables pertain to workers paid at hourly rates; salaried and other non-hourly workers are excluded. As such, the actual number of workers with earnings at or below the prevailing minimum is undoubtedly understated. Research has shown that a relatively smaller number and share of salaried workers and others not paid by the hour have earnings that, when translated into hourly rates, are at or below the minimum wage. However, BLS does not routinely estimate hourly earnings for non-hourly workers because of data concerns that arise in producing these estimates. For further information, see Steven Haugen and Earl Mellor, "Estimating the number of minimum wage workers," Monthly Labor Review, January 1990 at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1990/01/rpt1full.pdf.

The prevailing Federal minimum wage was $2.90 in 1979, $3.10 in 1980, and $3.35 in 1981-89. The minimum wage rose to $3.80 in April 1990, $4.25 in April 1991, $4.75 in October 1996, and $5.15 in September 1997. On July 24, 2007, the Federal minimum wage increased to $5.85 per hour from $5.15 per hour; on July 24, 2008, from $5.85 per hour to $6.55 per hour; and on July 24, 2009, from $6.55 per hour to $7.25 per hour.

For personal assistance or further information on minimum wage workers, as well as other Bureau data, contact the Mid-Atlantic Information Office at 215-597-3282 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Information on the Current Population Survey and other surveys and programs is available on our Web site at www.bls.gov/ro3/. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200, TDD message referral phone number: 1-800-877-8339.