September 9, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Young adults most likely to be among the working poor

Younger workers are the most vulnerable to being poor. In 1997, workers under the age of 25 had poverty rates about twice the overall rate.

[Chart data—TXT]

Among workers age 16 to 19 years, 11.6 percent lived below the poverty level in 1997. For workers age 20 to 24, the poverty rate was about the same: 11.5 percent. These rates were approximately twice the average of 5.7 percent for all workers.

Poverty rates of workers generally declined with age. The biggest drop was between the 20-to 24-year-olds and the 25-to 34-year-olds. Workers 65 and older had the lowest poverty rate of all, at 2.7 percent.

These data on poverty rates are from the Current Population Survey. The above figures are for individuals who spent at least 27 weeks in the labor force in 1997. Find out more in "A Profile of the Working Poor, 1997," BLS Report 936.