Aug 4 2008
A new national survey by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University provides a detailed look at the real life experiences and views of low-wage workers.
The survey assesses financial challenges low-wage workers face, including difficulties obtaining and paying for health care, their views about their financial and job situations and their hopes and expectations for the future.
The Washington Post is featuring findings from the survey in a series of articles that began yesterday. The telephone poll was conducted from June 18 to July 7, 2008 among 1,350 randomly selected low-wage workers nationwide. Low-wage workers were defined as adults ages 18 to 64 working at least 30 hours per week, not self-employed, and earning $27,000 or less in 2007. This income cutoff was chosen because it roughly corresponds to the bottom 40 percent of the wage distribution.
The Survey of Low-Wage Workers is the 17th in a series generated under a three-way partnership between The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The three partners worked together to pick the survey topics, design the survey instruments, and analyze the results. Full survey results, methodology, and a link to the Washington Post articles are available online.