, E., M. Cociña, L. Dresser, and J. Knauss. Raise the Floor Wisconsin - Minimum Wage Edition. COWS, 2014.
There is a crisis of poverty-wage work in Wisconsin. 700,000 Wisconsinites, one of every four workers in the state, earns less than $11.36 per hour – the wage required for a full-time, full-year worker to keep a family of four out of poverty – according to a new report from COWS and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
The report helps draw a more complete picture of poverty-wage work in Wisconsin, using federal data to highlight problems in the labor market, the workers that stands to gain from a higher minimum wage, the jobs these workers hold, and the real costs of living that Wisconsinites face. The report also challenges the argument that raising the minimum wage is bad for business.