Five Percent Of Idaho’s Workforce Earned Minimum Wage In 2011

The Idaho Department of Labor’s latest monthly newsletter describes how the state’s proportion of minimum wage jobs has shifted over the course of the recession.  A greater share of Idaho’s workforce is earning minimum wage now than in 2007, the height of the economic boom.

Nearly 19,000 Idaho workers earned minimum wage last year, that’s down from 30,000 in 2010.

Idaho Department of Labor

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“Estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that about 12,000 of Idaho’s 424,000 hourly workers – 2.8 percent – were making the minimum wage of $5.85 an hour in 2007 during the peak of the state’s economic expansion.

By 2010, the number making the new minimum wage of $7.25 an hour had risen to 30,000 while the total number of hourly workers in Idaho had dropped to 396,000.

The number of workers earning the minimum wage dropped significantly in 2011 to 19,000, but that was still over 5 percent of the state’s hourly workforce.” – Bob Fick, Idaho Dept. of Labor

The Idaho Labor Department reports the state’s median wage was $14.54 per hour in 2010.