But these efforts to consistently increase the minimum wage have one glaring problem: the minimum wage isn’t an efficient policy tool to achieve its primary goal of reducing poverty.
The inefficiency of the minimum wage stems directly from who are working minimum wage jobs in California. First, based on the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, in 2014, almost one-third of hourly workers making $9 per hour live in households with family income above the federal poverty line; moreover, 79 percent were ages 25 or younger (i.e. individuals who are just entering the labor force). And lastly, 73 percent of Californian hourly workers making $9 per hour (or less) didn’t have a college degree, suggesting a majority of minimum wage workers are, in fact, lower skilled.