For many Californians, the phrase “low-wage worker” undoubtedly conjures a couple of very specific images: a kid grinding through a summer job, or a farmworker sweating in the heat of a planting or harvesting season.
To be sure, both groups have been paid low wages for decades — but that’s not close to the state’s actual labor picture. Teenagers comprise only 7.5% of all low-wage workers in California. And agriculture as an industry, lumped together with forestry, fishing and hunting for survey purposes, accounts for less than 4% of the low-wage workforce because of its relatively small number of workers overall.
