Low-Wage Workers and Poverty: Making Work Pay

For many families in the United States, full-time employment does not guarantee economic well-being. Indeed, low-wage work can leave families with household income below or just above the poverty threshold. For example, the household income for a family of three with one full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour reaches only 65 percent of the 2006 federal poverty line. For a family of four with one minimum-wage worker, household income is 54 percent of the poverty line. Even if a family of four has two full-time minimum-wage workers, household income is only slightly higher than the poverty line, at 107 percent.

SOURCE: The 2006 HHS Poverty Guidelines. Washington DC: Department of Health and Human Services, January 24, 2006.
Web site: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/06poverty.shtml.  

MDRC's Work Advancement and Support Center (WASC) demonstration was designed to build knowledge about how to help people who work in low-wage jobs achieve a higher standard of living for themselves and their families, while simultaneously meeting employer demand for skilled workers. WASC combines two main strategies: (1) services to help workers stay employed, build their skills, and advance; and (2) simplified access to financial supports for working  people, including child care subsidies, the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, and subsidized health insurance. MDRC's report, A New Approach to Low-Wage Workers and Employers: Launching the Work Advancement and Support Center Demonstration, discusses the project's start-up experiences in Dayton and San Diego.

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