The working poor

The number of working Americans earning so little they lived in poverty reached 7.2 percent of the labor force in 2010, the highest level in at least two decades.

Overall, the United States had 46.2 million people living in poverty that year, or 15.1 percent of the population of all ages. The working poor totaled 10.5 million.

The official poverty line in 2010 was an annual income of $10,830 for a single person and $22,050 for a family of four.

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In 1968, the federal minimum wage stood at $1.60 an hour. If workers were earning the same amount in today’s dollars, adjusting for inflation, they would be paid over $10 per hour, not the current $7.25 per hour. During that same time, median household income has risen roughly 14 percent while the value of the minimum wage has fallen by 30 percent.

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