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 MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS IN ILLINOIS: 2007

In 2007, 74,000 hourly-paid workers in Illinois had earnings at or below the Federal minimum wage 1/, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Regional Commissioner Jay A. Mousa noted that workers paid at or below the Federal minimum in Illinois accounted for 2.2 percent of the 3.3 million hourly-paid workers in the State 2/. The workers paid at hourly rates represented 57.5 percent of the State’s wage and salary workers 3/.

The number of hourly-paid workers at or below the Federal minimum in Illinois has declined almost continuously since 1998 when 189,000 workers fell into that wage bracket. However, the overall rate of decline has slowed considerably since 2004. (See chart A.)

Chart A. Employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the Federal minimum wage in Illinois, annual averages, 1998-2007

Chart A. Employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the Federal minimum wage in Illinois, annual averages, 1998-2007

1/ On July 24, 2007, the Federal minimum wage increased to $5.85 per hour from $5.15 per hour. Data in this report reflect the average number of workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less for the year—those who earned $5.15 or less from January 2007 through July 2007 and those who earned $5.85 or less from August 2007 through the end of the year.

It should be noted that the presence of a sizable number of workers with reported wages below the minimum does not necessarily indicate violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as there are exemptions to the minimum wage provisions of the law.

3/ Data are for wage and salary workers, excluding the incorporated self-employed, and refer to earnings on a person's sole or principal job.

According to Current Population Survey (CPS) estimates for 2007, 75.9 million workers in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing about 58.5 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 267,000 were reported as earning exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage. Nearly 1.5 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum. Together, these 1.7 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 2.3 percent of all hourly-paid workers.

Chart B. Percentage of employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage in Illinois, by sex, annual averages, 1998-2007

Chart B. Percentage of employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage in Illinois, by sex, annual averages, 1998-2007

Women accounted for 55,000, almost three-fourths of all hourly-paid workers who earned the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less in Illinois in 2007, and men numbered 19,000. The numbers for both these groups have decreased since 1998--70 percent for men and 56 percent for women. (See table A.) Matching these numerical declines was the drop in the respective percentages of workers earning the Federal minimum wage or less. In 1998, 7.8 percent of all women paid hourly wages and 4.1 percent of all men earned the Federal minimum wage or less; by 2007, these proportions had fallen considerably—to 3.3 percent for women and 1.1 percent for men. However, it should be noted that the downward trend among women halted in 2004, whereas the number of men with wages at or below the Federal minimum continued to decline during the last three years.

Overall, Illinois wage and salary workers paid hourly rates 4/ had median hourly earnings of $11.94 in 2007; nationally, the median was $11.95. The median hourly rates for men and for women in Illinois in 2007 were $12.96 and $10.98, respectively. (See table A.) For the United States as a whole, the comparable figures were $12.95 for men and $10.98 for women.

4/ Wage rates in this release use median values. The median is the middle of a distribution: half the scores are above the median and half are below the median. The median is less sensitive to extreme wages than the mean; this makes it a better measure than the mean for highly skewed distributions.

Table A. Employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the federal minimum wage and median earnings of all hourly-paid workers in Illinois, annual averages, 1998-2007
Illinois At or below Federal minimum wage (number of workers in thousands) All hourly-paid workers
Total Below prevailing At prevailing Number of workers (in thousands) Median Earnings (in dollars)
Total

1998

 189 135 54 3,160 $9.17

1999

 143 105 38 3,261 9.87

2000

 132 101 31 3,385 9.96

2001

 109 78 31 3,295 10.62

2002

 94 64 30 3,166 10.82

2003

 71 52 19 3,111 11.18

2004

 84 71 13 3,184 11.22

2005

 77 65 12 3,207 11.27

2006

 76 62 14 3,251 11.82

2007

 74 71 3 3,335 11.94
Men

1998

 64 38 26 1,548 $10.30

1999

 43 29 14 1,589 11.13

2000

 49 37 12 1,652 11.08

2001

 44 30 14 1,633 12.01

2002

 35 22 13 1,596 11.99

2003

 23 15 8 1,541 12.24

2004

 36 29 7 1,603 12.36

2005

 28 25 3 1,579 12.21

2006

 22 18 4 1,624 12.98

2007

 19 18 1 1,678 12.96
Women

1998

 125 97 28 1,611 $8.39

1999

 100 76 24 1,672 8.89

2000

 83 64 19 1,733 9.13

2001

 65 48 17 1,662 9.86

2002

 59 42 17 1,570 9.92

2003

 48 37 11 1,570 10.23

2004

 47 42 5 1,581 10.15

2005

 49 40 9 1,628 10.49

2006

 54 44 10 1,627 10.51

2007

 55 53 2 1,657 10.98
NOTE: Data are for wage and salary workers, excluding the incorporated self-employed, and refer to earnings on a person's sole or principal job.

Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2007, Mississippi, at 4.5 percent, had the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage, followed by Louisiana at 4.3 percent. Texas, Massachusetts, and South Carolina were next, all at 4.0 percent. Montana, California, Washington, and Oregon had the lowest percentages, each with less than 1 percent of hourly-paid workers earning the Federal minimum or below. It should be noted that as of January 1, 2008, 33 states and the District of Columbia had laws establishing minimum wage standards that exceeded the Federal level of $5.85 per hour 5/.

Chart C. Minimum wage laws in the States, January 1, 2008

Chart C. Minimum wage laws in the States, January 1, 2008

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment Standards Administration

5/ U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Standards Administration, Wage and Hour Division: www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm.

 

Technical Note

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' data on minimum wage earners are derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a nationwide sample survey of households that includes questions enabling the identification of hourly-paid workers and their hourly wage rate. Data in this summary are annual averages.

Minimum wage data, particularly levels, for each year are not strictly comparable with data for earlier years because of the introduction of revised population controls used in the CPS. The effect of the revised population controls on the minimum wage estimates is unknown. However, the effect of the new controls in 2007 on the monthly CPS estimates for the U.S. was to increase the December 2007 employment level by 153,000 and the unemployment level of 10,000. The updated controls had little or no effect on unemployment rates and other rations. For additional information, see "Adjustments to Household Survey Population Estimates in January 2007" in the February 2007 issue of Employment and Earnings available on the Internet at www.bls.gov/cps/cps07adj.pdf.

It should be noted that the presence of a sizable number of workers with reported wages below the minimum does not necessarily indicate violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as there are exemptions to the minimum wage provisions of the law. The estimates of the numbers of minimum and subminimum wage workers presented in the accompanying tables pertain to workers paid at hourly rates; salaried and other non-hourly workers are excluded. As such, the actual number of workers with earnings at or below the prevailing minimum is undoubtedly understated. Research has shown that a relatively smaller number and share of salaried workers and others not paid by the hour have earnings that, when translated into hourly rates, are at or below the minimum wage. However, BLS does not routinely estimate hourly earnings for non-hourly workers because of data concerns that arise in producing these estimates. For further information, see Steven Haugen and Earl Mellor, "Estimating the number of minimum wage workers," Monthly Labor Review, January 1990 (PDF 415K).

The prevailing Federal minimum wage was $2.90 in 1979, $3.10 in 1980, and $3.35 in 1981-89. The minimum wage rose to $3.80 in April 1990, $4.25 in April 1991, $4.75 in October 1996, and $5.15 in September 1997. On July 24, 2007, the Federal minimum wage increased to $5.85 per hour from $5.15 per hour. Data in this report reflect the average number of workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less for the year (those who earned $5.15 or less from January 2007 through July 2007 and those who earned $5.85 or less from August 2007 through the end of the year).

This release is available on our Web site at www.bls.gov/ro5/home.htm. If you have additional questions, you can contact the Chicago Information Office at 312-353-1880. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200; TDD message referral phone number: 1-800-877-8339.

Table 1. Employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage by State, 2007 annual averages
State Number of workers (in thousands) Percent distribution Percent of workers paid hourly rates
Total paid hourly rates At or below minimum wage Total paid hourly rates At or below minimum wage At or below minimum wage
Total At minimum wage Below minimum wage Total At minimum wage Below minimum wage Total At minimum wage Below minimum wage

Total, 16 years and over

 75,873 1,729 267 1,462 100 100 100 100 2.3 0.4 1.9

Alabama

 1,132 37 14 23 1.5 2.1 5.2 1.6 3.3 1.2 2

Alaska

 197 2 - 2 0.3 0.1 - 0.1 1 - 1

Arizona

 1,560 28 2 26 2.1 1.6 0.7 1.8 1.8 0.1 1.7

Arkansas

 677 17 1 16 0.9 1 0.4 1.1 2.5 0.1 2.4

California

 8,785 74 9 65 11.6 4.3 3.4 4.4 0.8 0.1 0.7

Colorado

 1,164 25 1 24 1.5 1.4 0.4 1.6 2.1 0.1 2.1

Connecticut

 923 14 - 14 1.2 0.8 - 1 1.5 - 1.5

Delaware

 234 5 - 5 0.3 0.3 - 0.3 2.1 - 2.1

District of Columbia

 109 3 1 2 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.1 2.8 0.9 1.8

Florida

 4,261 114 15 99 5.6 6.6 5.6 6.8 2.7 0.4 2.3

Georgia

 2,216 70 11 59 2.9 4 4.1 4 3.2 0.5 2.7

Hawaii

 338 4 - 4 0.4 0.2 - 0.3 1.2 - 1.2

Idaho

 424 12 4 8 0.6 0.7 1.5 0.5 2.8 0.9 1.9

Illinois

 3,335 74 3 71 4.4 4.3 1.1 4.9 2.2 0.1 2.1

Indiana

 1,826 36 7 29 2.4 2.1 2.6 2 2 0.4 1.6

Iowa

 933 24 2 22 1.2 1.4 0.7 1.5 2.6 0.2 2.4

Kansas

 796 25 5 20 1 1.4 1.9 1.4 3.1 0.6 2.5

Kentucky

 1,152 35 9 26 1.5 2 3.4 1.8 3 0.8 2.3

Louisiana

 937 40 17 23 1.2 2.3 6.4 1.6 4.3 1.8 2.5

Maine

 399 9 - 9 0.5 0.5 - 0.6 2.3 - 2.3

Maryland

 1,317 27 2 25 1.7 1.6 0.7 1.7 2.1 0.2 1.9

Massachusetts

 1,505 60 2 58 2 3.5 0.7 4 4 0.1 3.9

Michigan

 2,678 58 1 57 3.5 3.4 0.4 3.9 2.2 0 2.1

Minnesota

 1,565 21 2 19 2.1 1.2 0.7 1.3 1.3 0.1 1.2

Mississippi

 691 31 16 15 0.9 1.8 6 1 4.5 2.3 2.2

Missouri

 1,577 33 3 30 2.1 1.9 1.1 2.1 2.1 0.2 1.9

Montana

 289 1 - 1 0.4 0.1 - 0.1 0.3 - 0.3

Nebraska

 553 17 3 14 0.7 1 1.1 1 3.1 0.5 2.5

Nevada

 747 12 3 9 1 0.7 1.1 0.6 1.6 0.4 1.2

New Hampshire

 372 9 1 8 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.5 2.4 0.3 2.2

New Jersey

 1,697 29 4 25 2.2 1.7 1.5 1.7 1.7 0.2 1.5

New Mexico

 479 11 2 9 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.6 2.3 0.4 1.9

New York

 4,078 88 7 81 5.4 5.1 2.6 5.5 2.2 0.2 2

North Carolina

 2,156 46 4 42 2.8 2.7 1.5 2.9 2.1 0.2 1.9

North Dakota

 191 5 2 3 0.3 0.3 0.7 0.2 2.6 1 1.6

Ohio

 3,422 79 5 74 4.5 4.6 1.9 5.1 2.3 0.1 2.2

Oklahoma

 849 25 10 15 1.1 1.4 3.7 1 2.9 1.2 1.8

Oregon

 1,050 9 2 7 1.4 0.5 0.7 0.5 0.9 0.2 0.7

Pennsylvania

 3,434 69 3 66 4.5 4 1.1 4.5 2 0.1 1.9

Rhode Island

 315 7 - 7 0.4 0.4 - 0.5 2.2 - 2.2

South Carolina

 1,178 47 10 37 1.6 2.7 3.7 2.5 4 0.8 3.1

South Dakota

 241 6 1 5 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3 2.5 0.4 2.1

Tennesee

 1,602 39 10 29 2.1 2.3 3.7 2 2.4 0.6 1.8

Texas

 5,585 221 46 175 7.4 12.8 17.2 12 4 0.8 3.1

Utah

 748 11 1 10 1 0.6 0.4 0.7 1.5 0.1 1.3

Vermont

 181 4 - 4 0.2 0.2 - 0.3 2.2 - 2.2

Virginia

 1,761 46 5 41 2.3 2.7 1.9 2.8 2.6 0.3 2.3

Washington

 1,844 17 3 14 2.4 1 1.1 1 0.9 0.2 0.8

West Virginia

 478 16 9 7 0.6 0.9 3.4 0.5 3.3 1.9 1.5

Wisconsin

 1,730 32 4 28 2.3 1.9 1.5 1.9 1.8 0.2 1.6

Wyoming

 164 4 1 3 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.2 2.4 0.6 1.8

NOTE: Data exclude all self-employed persons regardless of whether or not their businesses are incorporated. Users are reminded that these data are based on a sample and are therefore subject to sampling error; the degree of error may be quite large for less populous States. It is not possible to clearly determine whether workers surveyed in the CPS are actually covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) or by individual State minimum wage laws. Thus, some workers reported as earning an hourly wage of $5.15 may not in fact be covered by Federal or State minimum wage laws. At the same time, the presence of a sizable number of workers with wages below the prevailing Federal minimum wage does not necessarily indicate violations of the FLSA or applicable State laws, because there are numerous exclusions and exemptions to these minimum wage statutes. Dash indicates no data or data that do not meet publication criteria.

 

Last Modified Date: July 25, 2008