Minnesota Minimum Wage Jobs

or Why your child needs to graduate and 
get some job training beyond that

by Mary Benton Hummel, Alessia Leibert, and Kyle Uphoff 
September 2010

You may have known a child who was pushed and pulled through high school, resisting briskly. But upon graduation, these same now “young adults” may have looked around, trying to find a job that will pay $100,000 a year with handsome benefits, preferably with limited responsibilities. This is SO not going to happen. If you don’t want your child living in his or her bedroom until his or her Social Security kicks in, you need to start a conversation about skills that get jobs that pay a living wage and the additional training such skills require.

Education beyond high school is a popular concept in Minnesota, and a good proportion of your child’s classmates are already planning to do that. According to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, 70 percent of the 2007-2008 graduating class chose to go on for further education, and 72 percent of the 70 percent chose to stay in Minnesota to attend higher education beyond high school. Of the 32,600 who chose to stay in Minnesota, 40 percent chose a community or technical college, 20 percent chose a state university, 19 percent chose a private four-year college, 17 percent chose the University of Minnesota, and 4 percent went to a private career school (see Figure 1).

Here’s a very good reason why 70 percent made a smart choice. The absolute minimum wage in Minnesota is $5.25 an hour if you work for a small firm [1] and bring no skills to the job. High scores in computer games are not a plus. The minimum wage of $5.25 an hour brings an annual gross of $10,920. The employer is required to withhold from wages Social Security,[2]  Medicare, federal income tax, and state income tax. The minimum annual gross of $10,920 just got smaller fast. Also, jobs that pay low wages usually do not have benefits like paid vacation or health insurance.

The purpose of this article is not to brand some jobs as “awful.” The economy has and will always have some jobs that are vital but not well paid. The job of sweeping up popcorn in a movie theater springs to mind. These jobs are, however, a way for a motivated new employee to build skills and be promoted, making these jobs available to a new crop of individuals with no appreciable job skills. The more skills you bring to a job, the easier it is to start a little further up the job ladder. Work experience that shows excellent transferable skills, such as customer service, attendance, communication, attentiveness, and organization, is sought by all employers.

The average wage in an industry can be quite different from the average wage in an occupation that occurs within that industry. Some occupations, like secretary for example, show up in almost every industry, but they do not pay the same wage across industries. So the question is “Where does one find reliable wage information on occupations and industries in Minnesota?” The answer can be found in the data from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program.

The OES program is an important part of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Funded by the Department of Labor, this program sends out questionnaires to approximately 3,500 Minnesota employers asking for the job titles of their employees and their wages within ranges. The mailings take place twice a year, so the data are very current. Considerable effort is made to assure that the survey is balanced geographically in proportion to the number of employers in each area of the state and that each geographical area has a non-negotiable 75 percent response rate. Map 1 shows the geographical areas of wage data from the OES program. Wage information from the OES program is available at www.PositivelyMinnesota.com/oes .

Table 1 shows the lowest paid occupations in Minnesota. Several of these are very good for summer jobs for teenagers, but they may not meet the criteria (coolness factor) that teens are looking for in a summer job.

Some of the jobs listed in Table 1 have so few people employed in them that it might be well to view the lowest paying jobs that might have job openings. These are occupations that employ a lot of people and have a high turnover rate (see Table 2).

At this point the question should be “How do I avoid being stuck in one of these jobs my entire working life?” The answer is advanced schooling. The difference in personal care attendant ($9.87 median hourly wage/$20,529 annual wage) and licensed practical nurse ($18.87 median hourly wage/$39,250 annual wage) is two years of schooling and more choices in life. For another two years of schooling, one can get trained as a registered nurse and earn a median wage of $34.66 an hour ($72,102 annually).

Minnesota is and always has been the “Education State.” There are numerous ways for people to attend school — days, evenings, public, private, short-term, long-term – you name it. Plus various means of financial assistance are available. Table 3 lists public schools that offer short-term training in Minnesota. Addresses and programs at these schools as well as other options are available on the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities website at www.mnscu.edu or www.iseek.org/education/educationSearch#tab-search-colleges .

Determining a career path isn’t always easy. A good place to start is with MnCareers, a career and education planning guide for all ages. The 120-page publication, updated annually, has been produced for more than 30 years and has received numerous awards and endorsements. More information on MnCareers is available at www.iseek.org/mncareers/index.html . Other useful information for career explorers and job seekers is available on DEED’s website at www.PositivelyMinnesota.com , or on DEED’s job search site at www.MinnesotaWorks.net .

To summarize:  a pharmacy aide makes a median wage of $10.12 an hour or $21,050 a year. A pharmacy technician makes a median hourly wage of $14.64 an hour or $30,451 a year. The pharmacist makes a median hourly wage of $56.95 an hour or $118,465 a year. It’s all about education. Plan your career and take the first step now.

[1]In Minnesota this is the minimum wage for a firm that has receipts of less than $625,000 a year.  Firms with receipts over that amount have a minimum wage of $6.15 for a gross annual wage of $12,792.
[2]FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) is actually Social Security.

Top