Low-wage work declines with education, but even securing a bachelor's degree does not guarantee a worker will not be paid a low wage
The bars show the prevalence of low-wage work among different levels of educational attainment. For example, 1 out of 7 (14.3%) workers with a bachelor's degree is paid a low wage.
Bar chart showing low-wage work prevalence across California in 2022, according to the highest level of education attained by each worker. The x-axis includes less than high school, high school graduate or GED, some college, Associate's degree, Bachelor's degree, or Advanced degree. The y-axis describes the share of low-wage workers in each education group, from 0 to 65%. While 64.7% of workers with less than a high school diploma are paid low wages, 7.3% of workers with advanced degrees are also paid hourly wages equal to $19.69 or less.
