Federal Minimum Wage, Tax-Transfer Earnings Supplements, and Poverty

The minimum wage affects workers regardless of their family status. A full-time, year-round worker at the current minimum wage would gross $15,080 in the year. A worker's poverty status, however, depends on family circumstance, specifically family size. A single full-year, full-time worker earning the current federal minimum wage would have gross earnings above the 2014 poverty guidelines, but the same worker in a family of two or more people would have gross earnings that fall below these ...