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This report focuses on the characteristics of men who worked year round full time in 1966, but earned less than $3,000. The primary objective of this study is to describe their characteristics—their status as household heads, the size of their families, their age, and their education level.
The low earnings cutoff was arrived at after consideration of the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is one guideline to a standard for "adequacy" of earnings. The Act was designed to insure "fair" wages, hours, and working conditions for the individual workers covered, without reference to their family responsibilities or other sources of income. The minimum wage of $1.60 an hour in effect as of January 1968 would result in annual earnings of $3,200 for a year-round full-time worker (50 weeks of work averaging 40 hours each). The cutoff for 1966 was reduced to $3,000 in order to take account of changes in the cost of living over the past 2 years.
Census statistics date back to 1790 and reflect the growth and change of the United States. Past census reports contain some terms that today’s readers may consider obsolete and inappropriate. As part of our goal to be open and transparent with the public, we are improving access to all Census Bureau original publications and statistics, which serve as a guide to the nation's history.
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