This report focuses on adult employees who were shown to be earning below the standard Federal
Minimum Wage (FMW) in 2007–08. It considers explanations for why the data show there were adult
employees earning below the FMW, including whether identifiable categories of employees fall into this
group, and the extent this phenomenon is due to data problems. The period 2007–08 has been chosen
for analysis as this is the most recent period for which these questions can be explored across a number
of datasets.