A Look at Jobs Paying Less Than $15.00 Per Hour

Andrew Mattingly and Audrey Watson

In response to the Great Depression, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 instituted numerous labor law reforms. These reforms included establishing a federal minimum wage of $0.25 per hour ($5.49 per hour in today’s dollars). The minimum wage was later increased, and its scope extended to cover more workers. The most recent update, bringing the federal minimum wage up to its current value of $7.25 per hour, became effective 15 years ago in 2009. Since then, there have been growing efforts to increase the federal minimum wage, including a bill introduced in the 117th United States Congress to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. This Spotlight on Statistics uses data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program to explore what types of jobs pay less than $15 per hour and the industries, states, and areas where they are commonly found.

About 30.2 million jobs paid less than $15 per hour in May 2022, representing 20.4 percent of total national employment. Jobs paying $15 to $19.99 per hour were slightly more common at 22.8 percent (33.8 million) of total employment; jobs paying $20 to $24.99 per hour made up an additional 15.0 percent (22.2 million) of employment. Together, nearly 6 in 10 jobs paid less than $25 per hour. On the opposite end of the wage distribution, over a quarter of jobs (39.0 million) paid an hourly wage of $35 or more. Of these high-paying jobs, 8.1 million (5.5 percent of total employment) paid at least $70 per hour.

Among the 30.2 million jobs paying less than $15 per hour, the majority paid at least $13 per hour. Roughly 9.2 million jobs paid between $14 and $14.99 per hour, representing 30.5 percent of jobs with hourly wages less than $15. Jobs paying an hourly wage between $13 and $13.99 had the next highest employment: 7.4 million jobs or 24.5 percent of those paid less than $15 per hour. This pattern continued as employment generally increased with hourly wages. Though the federal minimum wage is $7.25, only 0.3 million jobs paid less than $8 per hour. This is due in part to state and local minimum wages that are higher than the federal minimum wage.

Food preparation and serving related occupations made up nearly a quarter (24.2 percent) of the 30.2 million jobs paying less than $15 per hour. Not only was this one of the largest occupational groups overall, but 58.4 percent of these jobs paid less than $15 per hour, a higher share than any other group. Many jobs paying less than $15 per hour were also found in sales and related occupations (5.1 million) and office and administrative support occupations (3.3 million). These three occupational groups combined accounted for 52.0 percent of jobs with hourly wages below $15.

Fast food and counter workers (2.4 million) and cashiers (2.4 million) were the occupations with the most jobs paying less than $15 per hour. Within both occupations, over 70 percent of jobs paid less than $15 per hour. In contrast, customer service representatives and general office clerks had a smaller share of jobs paying less than $15 per hour, constituting only 23.4 and 25.3 percent of employment, respectively. However, because these occupations were among the largest in the country, each had at least 0.6 million jobs that paid an hourly wage below $15.

Occupations with the largest share of jobs that paid below $15 per hour typically provided services to customers, such as accommodation, food, cleaning, grooming, recreation, and childcare. More than 80 percent of shampooers were paid less than $15 per hour, the highest share among all occupations. After shampooers, the occupations with the largest share of jobs paying less than $15 per hour were restaurant, lounge, and coffee shop hosts and hostesses (74.3 percent of employment); lifeguards, ski patrol, and other recreational protective service workers (74.1 percent); and fast food and counter workers (72.9 percent).

There was a notable overlap between the largest occupations in the nation and the occupations with the largest number of jobs paying less than $15 per hour. In 4 of the 5 most common occupations—retail salespersons, home health and personal care aides, fast food and counter workers, and cashiers—the majority of jobs paid less than $15 an hour. Together, these four occupations made up nearly 29 percent of all jobs paying less than $15 per hour. Among the next nine largest occupations, all but waiters and waitresses had a majority of jobs paying $15 or more per hour.

Of jobs paying less than $15 per hour, about 90 percent were in occupations that typically require either a high school diploma or no formal educational credential for entry, compared with 52.5 percent of jobs paying $15 per hour or more. Among jobs paying less than $15 per hour, 4.1 percent were in occupations that typically require a postsecondary nondegree award, such as a certificate, for entry. Occupations typically requiring a bachelor's degree for entry made up 30.1 percent of jobs paying $15 per hour or more, but only 2.8 percent of jobs paying less.

The states with the highest share of jobs paying less than $15 per hour were Mississippi (40.4 percent of employment), West Virginia (35.9 percent), and Louisiana (35.7 percent). States within the same region of the country tended to have a similar share of jobs paying less than $15 per hour. Those located in the Northeast and the West Coast were among the states with the lowest share of jobs paying less than $15 per hour, including Washington (4.1 percent), Massachusetts (5.6 percent), California (8.2 percent), and New York (8.9 percent).

The metropolitan areas with the largest share of jobs paying less than $15 per hour were McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas (51.1 percent of employment); Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas (49.9 percent); and Gadsden, Alabama (49.3 percent), each with a concentration at least 2.4 times the national average. The share of jobs paying less than $15 per hour within an area tended to be similar to the share in its corresponding state(s). Areas within Massachusetts, California, Washington, and Colorado had among the lowest shares of jobs that paid less than $15 per hour.

Four industry sectors accounted for 70.3 percent of jobs paying less than $15 per hour. Accommodation and food services (7.6 million) and retail trade (6.7 million) had the largest number of jobs in this wage category. These sectors had high concentrations of occupations in which lower wages were common, such as fast food and counter workers and other food service occupations, retail salespersons, and cashiers. The sectors with the next largest numbers of jobs paying less than $15 per hour were healthcare and social assistance (4.2 million) and administrative and waste services (2.7 million), which includes activities like telemarketing, and janitorial, landscaping, and employment services.

Restaurants and other eating places (6.3 million) had the largest number of jobs paying less than $15 per hour. This was due both to the industry’s large size—it had the highest total employment of any industry in May 2022—and to the high percentage of industry jobs with hourly wages below $15 (60.5 percent). Food preparation and serving related occupations, the occupational group with the highest percentage of jobs paying less than $15 per hour, made up over 88 percent of employment in this industry. After restaurants and other eating places, the industries with the largest number of jobs paying less than $15 per hour were food and beverage retailers (1.5 million), general merchandise retailers (1.4 million), individual and family services (1.2 million), and employment services (1.1 million), which includes temporary help services.

Half of the jobs in food and beverage retailers paid less than $15 per hour. The industry, which includes grocery, convenience, and specialty food retailers, but not beer, wine, and liquor retailers, was among those with the largest number of jobs paying less than $15 per hour (1.5 million). In 7 of the 10 largest occupations in this industry, the majority of jobs had hourly wages below $15. About 68 percent of cashiers and 53.6 percent of stockers and order fillers earned less than $15 per hour in food and beverage retailers; these two occupations combined made up nearly half of industry employment. The majority of food preparation workers, fast food and counter workers, customer service representatives, retail salespersons, and hand packers and packagers employed by food and beverage retailers also earned less than $15 per hour. By comparison, 34.0 percent of butchers and meat cutters, 12.1 percent of first-line supervisors of retail sales workers, and 7.7 percent of general and operations managers had wages below $15 per hour in this industry.

The individual and family services industry provides a variety of nonresidential social assistance services, such as adoption services, senior centers, nonmedical home care, adult day care, and crisis intervention centers. The industry had 1.2 million jobs paying less than $15 per hour. Most of these jobs were in a single occupation: home health and personal care aides, which made up 64 percent of total industry employment and nearly 86 percent of jobs paying less than $15 per hour. Of the 10 largest occupations in individual and family services, nursing assistants was the only other occupation in which the majority of jobs (54.3 percent) paid less than $15 per hour. In contrast to food and beverage retailers, most of the largest occupations in individual and family services had relatively low shares of jobs below this wage threshold. For example, only 19.8 percent of social and human service assistants; 5.9 percent of child, family, and school social workers; and 5.2 percent of substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors had hourly wages below $15.