Multiple Jobs, Fewer Minimum-Wage Workers
This chart traces annual multiple-jobholding against the share of hourly-paid workers at or below the federal minimum wage. The two aggregate measures have decoupled since 2010, but they describe different populations and cannot identify why any individual holds multiple jobs.
What does it show?
Since 2010, multiple-jobholding has recovered while the share of hourly workers at or below the federal minimum has collapsed, so the two are poor stand-ins for each other.
Methodology
Averages the seasonally adjusted monthly multiple-jobholder rate within each calendar year and pairs it with BLS’s annual share of hourly-paid workers at or below the federal minimum wage. The connected scatter shows aggregate annual movement, not the same people: salaried workers are excluded from the minimum-wage denominator, and multiple jobholders can have high earnings. Correlations are descriptive, sensitive to shared trends and the federal minimum’s long nominal freeze, and do not establish that low wages cause—or fail to cause—multiple jobholding.