Nearly half of American workers have low-wage jobs

Not only have our minimum wage laws not been updated to realistic levels, neither has the poverty level. Half of Americans are indeed too poor to support themselves. They are not even making what the minimum wage should be and should get government assistance. Hard to keep calling America a developed country when easily half of its population cannot support itself and most of that half is not supported by the government. Definitely can't call that democratic either.

From the union discussion the other day, one thing that always struck me was how weird it was that more conservatives don't encourage labor unions in the private sector.

I'd have thought, since fundamentally union membership is about private contracts between employers and a group of workers, that conservatives would see it as an alternative to government stepping in and setting up minimum wages.

If we had friendlier labor laws and we allowed more groups of workers to organize, the need for the federal government to step in with wage floors would decrease and, importantly, there would be more flexibility for employers AND employees -- like instead of paying above a certain minimum wage both sides could agree to more generous healthcare and/or retirement packages.

there is a big lack of information in theses poor written 20 lines, and probably misleading on purpose.

- Are theses low-wage jobs only considering full time jobs? - What about student jobs? - If some people have multiple part-time jobs but all of them individually fall under the median annual wages of $18,000, then they are increasing the statistics

What is arguably more appalling, is the fact that half of American workers, earn less than the average,

For perspective, 18k a year in the US puts a person in the top 5% of income worldwide.

http://www.globalrichlist.com/