Minimum-wage employees in the U.S. need to work three times as many hours a week to lift their families out of poverty compared with counterparts in the U.K., says a study released Wednesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
A single parent of two children would need to work 50 hours a week at a minimum-wage job in the U.S. to earn 50% of the nation’s net median household income, the organization’s international equivalent for the poverty line. A similar worker in the U.K. would only need to work 16 hours to rise above the poverty threshold, the OECD said.
The federal minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25 an hour. The U.K. minimum wage rate is 6.50 pound, or about $9.92 an hour. The OECD measure takes into account not only the minimum rate, but also taxes that a worker would need to pay and social assistance for which the family would qualify.
Full Story @ [Wall Street Journal]
