Russell said: > Just a run-down: > The original stat is irrelevant because: > - Less than 40% of the US is single-parent two-child househoulds, > therefore there's no proven overlap.
Ah, ok, I misunderstood what you were driving at initially. The perils of posting after a night on the beers :-) > "60% of the US population earns less than twice the minimum wage" is a > relevant statistic, if you can show that the majority or even more than 40% > of people cannot live on that. Actually, that statistic alone is worth > something, but the addendum of the one-parent two-child comment made it seem > (to me at least) like you were trying to prove something that wasn't there. Right, I see what you mean. However, I didn't quote the original figures because I thought they applied across the board, nor was I implying that everyone who earns minimum wage is a one-parent family with two children. It was primarily intended to be seen as two facts, though quite clearly it doesn't read like that, I admit. Personally, I don't think it's a major leap to suppose that earning half that amount or less, even without children isn't going to mean you're enjoying a good lifestyle (indeed the 98 US govt's poverty guidelines suggest an income of $13,650 for a 3-person houshold is impecunious; the poverty line for just one person is still 60% of that). But that's an (as you say) unfounded extrapolation. So, fair enough, I take your point on board. Slighty more, erm, relevant stats (had I been able to dig them out last night) would have been that: 70% of people earning minimum wage are over the age of 20, and over half are over the age of 25 - which somewhat goes against the idea that it's just students earning some pocket money. 10% are over 60. 62% of people earning minimum wage are women, who are five times more likely to be the heads of the 16.4% of households which are single parent. 11.7% of minium wage earners are the sole bread winners for a family unit of two or more people. 24.3% of MW earners are the head of their household MW for a single earner should be enough to provide 120% of poverty level income. However, that falls to 91% with one child, and 73% with two. The real value of the MW is falling year on year. http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/minimum%20wage%20current.pdf http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p20-537.pdf http://www.epf.org/graph/pr991108f1.gif http://www.epf.org/graph/pr991108f2.gif http://www.ncpa.org/hotlines/min/1996.html http://www.epinet.org/Issueguides/minwage/mw_val_1960-2001.pdf Rik. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
