Refreshing News: “It’s easy to assume that workers earning less than $15 is a small subset of the workforce. But, in fact, 42% of all workers in the United States fit this bill. Just over half of all African Americans earn less than $15 an hour, and nearly 60% of Latinos make that hourly sum.”

“It’s easy to assume that workers earning less than $15 is a small subset of the workforce. But, in fact, 42% of all workers in the United States fit this bill. Just over half of all African Americans earn less than $15 an hour, and nearly 60% of Latinos make that hourly sum.”

TURNS OUT IT’S 42% OF ALL U.S. WORKERS.

Ever since fast-food workers walked off their jobs in New York City in November 2012 to demand $15 per hour, that dollar figure has been the rallying cry of the low-wage worker movement.

The campaign has had some notable wins lately, as Wal-Mart, Target, T.J.Maxx, and McDonald’s announced increases to their minimum wages.

Despite of all the talk about $15 per hour, there hasn’t been a lot of conversation about who precisely earns less than that figure.

The National Employment Law Project, an organization that supports raising the minimum wage and the unionization of workers, aims to change that on Monday, with the release of a new study that paints a more detailed picture of the worker who takes home less than $15 per hour—or $31,000 annually for full-time work. Here’s what NELP discovered:

via Refreshing News: “It’s easy to assume that workers earning less than $15 is a small subset of the workforce. But, in fact, 42% of all workers in the United States fit this bill. Just over half of all African Americans earn less than $15 an hour, and nearly 60% of Latinos make that hourly sum.”.

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