How much of the population currently makes minimum wage?

Answer 1

According to the department of labor the current Population Survey estimates 75.3 million workers are hourly wage earners in 2008. Among those 286,000 earned exactly the minimum wage and 1.9 million earned below the minimum. That makes for a total of 2.2 million workers who earn at or below the minimum--and that's 3% of the people who work as hourly employees.

Of those who make less than minimum wage, services workers made up the largest group. 9% of those who made less than minimum wage work in the service industry. And leisure and hospitality was the industry category with the largest number of below minimum wage workers at 14%.