WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

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MINIMUM WAGE

Profile America — Sunday, January 5th. The business world was confronted with a new idea on this date in 1914, when Henry Ford announced that he would pay his workers a minimum wage of $5 a day, which is about 117 in current dollars. The idea eventually gained general acceptance, and in 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law a federally mandated minimum wage of 25 cents an hour. Currently, the hourly minimum wage is $7.25, although 21 states and the District of Columbia have rates higher than the federal standard. There are over 75 million hourly workers in the U.S., 3.5 million of them paid at or below the minimum wage. Households in the bottom 20 percent of income earn no more than $20,600 per year. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov.

Sources: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/index.html All Raceshttp://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htmhttp://www.minimum-wage.org/federal-minimum-wage              http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx  www.at.ford.com

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

RELATED LINKShttp://www.census.gov