Here is who made up the minimum wage workforce in 2020

I have written before on why the minimum wage hike is an ineffective tool to lift families out of poverty. Contrary to what proponents claim, the minimum-wage workforce is made up mostly of young, low-skilled individuals, usually working part-time. This trend has stayed consistent as new Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for 2020 shows.

As explained by the BLS, in 2020,

Although workers under age 25 represented just under one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up 48 percent of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 5 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with 1 percent of workers age 25 and older.

Additionally,

Among hourly paid workers age 16 and older, about 2 percent of those without a high school diploma, high school graduates (no college), and those with some college or an associate degree earned the federal minimum wage or less, compared with 1 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree and higher.

Non-married workers were more likely to earn the minimum wage or less. This is not the case for married workers.

Minimum wage workers also mostly worked part-time and were employed in service occupations. In 2020, 7 out of 10 workers earning the minimum wage or less were employed in service occupations. These were employed mostly in food preparation and serving-related jobs.  Accordingly, minimum wage workers were concentrated in the leisure and hospitality industry.

For location,

The states with the highest percentages of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage were in the South: about 4 percent for South Carolina and about 3 percent for Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia. Compared with recent years, a relatively large number of states had less than 1 percent of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.

In February, the CBO published a report showing that raising the minimum wage to $15 would lead to 1.4 million job losses.  These job losses are expected to be concentrated among young and low-skilled workers with low levels of education who are not productive enough to merit a $15 wage.

Unfortunately, that happens to be the majority of minimum wage workers.