March 20, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Number, rate of working poor fell in 1999
In 1999, some 6.8 million people were classified as the "working poor."
[Chart data—TXT]
The number of such working poor was 362,000 fewer in 1999 than in 1998, continuing a 6-year downtrend. The working poverty rate was 5.1 percent in 1999, down 0.3 percentage point from the previous year.
These data are from the Current Population
Survey. The working poor are individuals who spent at least 27 weeks
in the labor force (either working or looking for work), but whose incomes
fell below the official poverty level. The working poverty rate is the
number of working poor divided by number of persons in the labor force for
27 weeks or more during the year. For more information, see BLS Report 947, A Profile of the Working Poor, 1999
(HTML) (PDF 60K).
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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