Employees Earning Below the Federal Minimum Wage: Review of Data Characteristics and Potential Explanatory Factors

Abstract

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.