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Although the poor were primarily adults who had not participated in the labor force during the year and children, 6.3 million individuals were among the “working poor” in 2019, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); this measure decreased from 7.0 million in 2018.
A profile of the working poor, 2021. In 2021, 37.9 million people, or 11.6 percent of the nation’s population, lived below the official poverty level, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. [1] ( See the technical notes section for examples of poverty levels.)
Although the poor were primarily adults who had not participated in the labor force during the year and children, 6.3 million individuals were among the “working poor” in 2020, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); this measure was essentially unchanged from 2019.
Among people in the labor force for 27 weeks or more in 2018, those with less than a high school diploma had the highest working-poor rate, at 13.5 percent, while those with a bachelor’s degree or higher had the lowest, at 1.4 percent.
Although the poor were primarily adults who had not participated in the labor force during the year and children, 6.3 million individuals were among the “working poor” in 2019, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); this measure decreased from 7.0 million in 2018.
In 2020, the working-poor rate of people in the labor force for 27 weeks or more was 4.1 percent and was little changed from a year earlier, when it reached a series low (4.0 percent). (See chart 1.) Full-time workers remained much less likely to be among the working poor than part-time workers.
Since 2014, Oxfam has been producing interactive maps that illustrate percentages of workers in the US earning low wages. The 2022 edition offers new research that shows all workers earning less than $15 an hour, including minimum and subminimum wages.
