During his State of the Union, President Obama advocated for an increase in the minimum wage to reduce income inequality. He also urged others who disagreed with him to present data. He may want to take a look at this article from The Federalist:
> During his annual State of the Union address before Congress, President Barack Obama made a big deal about the need to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The move followed months of promises and rhetoric from the White House about how important it was to the economy to increase the minimum wage.
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Back in August, the White House Twitter account even [posted an infographic](https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/statuses/362997321270697984) claiming that 15 million workers would “directly benefit” from a minimum wage increase and that “nobody who works full-time should live in poverty.” And in December, both the White House and the president’s labor secretary [publicly expressed support for nationwide strikes](https://twitter.com/LaborSec/status/408395358436593664) by hourly workers demanding higher pay (because nothing says “I deserve a raise” like refusing to show up to work).
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> Unfortunately for the White House, many of its claims about the minimum wage are divorced from reality. Here are 11 facts about the minimum wage that Barack Obama forgot to mention during his State of the Union address.
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> ## **1) Only 1 Percent Of The U.S. Labor Force Earns The Minimum Wage**
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> Despite the hoopla surrounding the issue, only a tiny percentage of American workers actually earn the federal hourly minimum wage: 1 percent, to be exact. In 2012, the most recent year for which nationwide minimum wage data is available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), roughly [1.5 million hourly workers](http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012tbls.htm#1)were paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25. To put that into perspective, the U.S. labor force consisted of nearly [155 million workers](http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat01.htm) in 2012.
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> ## **2) Teenagers Comprise The Single Largest Age Group Of Minimum Wage Workers**
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> Teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 years comprise [31 percent of all minimum wage workers](http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012tbls.htm#7) in the U.S. according to the BLS. Workers between 20 and 24 years of age comprise 24 percent of all minimum wage workers, those between 25 and 34 years comprise 15.5 percent, workers between 35 and 44 years comprise less than 10 percent, and those 45 years and up comprise roughly 20 percent of all minimum wage workers in the U.S… [Read more](http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/28/11-facts-about-the-minimum-wage-that-president-obama-forgot-to-mention-during-the-state-of-the-union/).
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