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- Despite the push for a $15 minimum wage, that amount still wouldn't support the average American.
- You would have to work 523 weekdays at $15 an hour to make what the average person spends in a year.
- The minimum wage is set at $7.25 an hour and hasn't been raised in over a decade.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Though calls for a $15-an-hour minimum wage have gained steam in Congress and major companies have raised their starting pay to that level, it still isn't enough to support the average American family, according to a recent analysis by USA Facts.
Someone making $15 an hour would have to work 8-hour shifts, 5 days a week, for 2 years to make what the average American family spends annually, the analysis found. The study defined the average American family as the middle 20% of income earners and based its analysis on data from different federal agencies.
The current federal minimum wage – $7.25 an hour – hasn't been raised in over a decade, and a proposal to raise it to $15 was cut from the final version of the American Rescue Plan. A $15 minimum wage would raise wages for over 32 million workers and would benefit Black workers and women the most.
Ten states have already implemented a $15 minimum wage, though some states' plans include gradually bumping up wages until they hit $15, meaning that residents in states like Delaware won't be guaranteed $15 an hour until 2025.
Major companies like Costco, Target, and Amazon have touted their $15 minimum wage, but workers have found that it isn't enough to live on. One Amazon warehouse worker making $19 an hour in New York City lived in her car since 2019 because she couldn't afford rent on an apartment.
But $15 an hour isn't even enough in states with a low cost of living. The report found that in Mississippi, a state with one of the lowest costs of living, a person would have to work 73 work weeks to earn as much as the average Mississippi family spends in a year.
"It is a nationwide truth that a $15 an hourly minimum wage would not be enough for a single-income-earner household to cover the average family's annual expenses," the report said.