...During the strong labor market of the mid-1990s, only 1 in 5 minimum-wage workers was still earning minimum wage a year later.1 Today, that number is nearly 1 in 3, according to my analysis of government survey data.2 There has been a similar rise in the number of people staying in minimum-wage jobs for three years or longer. (For a more detailed explanation of how I conducted this analysis, see the footnote below.)3
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Kemp is representative of the changing minimum-wage workforce in another way as well: At 44 years old, he is one of a growing number of middle-aged minimum-wage workers. Nearly a quarter of the 3.2 million minimum-wage workers in 2014 were over 40; half were 25 or older, up from about 40 percent two decades earlier.7 The face of the minimum wage has changed significantly in recent decades. As a group, today’s minimum-wage workers are far more educated than in the 1980s or 1990s. They are also more likely to be men and more likely to have children. More than half of low-wage workers — significantly more than in past decades — are trying to support themselves, not living with their parents or supplementing a spouse’s income.
