[Excerpt] According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2007, 75.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.5 percent of all wage and salary workers. On July 24, 2007, the Federal minimum wage increased to $5.85 per hour from $5.15 per hour. Data in this report reflect the average number of workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less for the year (those who earned $5.15 or less from January 2007 through July 2007 and those who earned $5.85 or less from August 2007 through the end of the year). Among those paid by the hour in 2007, 267,000 were reported as earning exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage. Nearly 1.5 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum. Together, these 1.7 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 2.3 percent of all hourly-paid workers. Tables 1-10 present data on a wide array of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics for hourly-paid workers earning at or below the Federal minimum wage.