ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, the United States has seen a substantial increase in the number of persons and families who are working but poor. The working poor are individuals who spend at least 27 weeks in the labor force (working or looking for work), but whose incomes fall below the official poverty level (Table 22). These are not individuals who choose voluntarily to work part-time or only part of a year. Instead, these are persons who would work full-time, 40-hour week jobs if that type of employment was available. Of the more than 35 million persons classified as living in poverty in the U.S., most are children, disabled, or elderly, but about seven million of them, men and women, fathers and mothers, young women and men, are working at jobs that do not pay a wage they can live on over the course of a year. The majority of working poor are between ages 25 and 54 https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
Persons in the labor force for 27 weeks or more: Poverty status by ageand sex, 2001
All people
People below poverty level
Age
Total
Male
Female
Total
Male
Female
16+
130,143
74,316
63,827
6,802
3,275
3,526
16–19
4818
2,483
2,365
506
232
274
20–24
13,011
6,854
6,157
1,292
545
747
25–34
31,307
17,248
14,059
1,988
953
1,035
35–44
36,368
19,611
16,757
1,581
782
799
45–54
32,120
16,949
15,179
922
501
421
55–64
16,008
8,599
7,409
443
231
212
65+
4,473
2,572
1,669
70
32
38
25–54
99,795
53,808
45,995
4,491
2,236
2,255
Numbers in thousands