1 in 5 women paid low wages is employed in Health Care and Social Assistance

Table shows the distribution of workers paid less than $19.69 across different industries, by gender. For example, about 1 in 5 (19.3%) women paid low wages works in Health Care and Social Assistance while <6% of all men paid low wages work in the same industry. The last column is color-coded, with darker colors indicating that the industry employs a larger share of the total low-wage workforce.

In 2022, the value of the low-wage threshold is $19.69. The sample includes workers who live and work in California, were employed last week but not self-employed, ages 16+, and with non-zero earnings last week. To calculate the share of workers paid low wages in 2021, we inflate 2021 wages to 2022 dollars and apply the 2022 low-wage threshold.
Chart: UC Berkeley Labor CenterSource: American Community Survey 2021 and 2022Get the dataEmbed Download imageDownload PDFDownload SVGCreated with Datawrapper