So most people scrape by, as Ms. Taylor did before landing her state job in 1996. At the time, she was living in a trailer and working in low-wage jobs at Wendy’s, Dairy Queen and a Big Lots discount store. Her hourly wage jumped to $9 when she started at the Gallipolis Developmental Center, a state home for mentally retarded people, up from $5.25 at a private nursing home.

“If I wasn’t working at the G.D.C., I’d have to work around the clock,” said Chris Smith, Ms. Taylor’s colleague, referring to the center, where she has worked for 20 years. “I’d have to work two or three jobs to keep at this level.”

The Taylors are not college educated, but their public-sector jobs have made them middle class. Together they earn about $63,000 a year, a sum that puts them squarely at the middle point of earnings for American families, and higher than the $50,000 earned by the typical Gallipolis family.

Money is still tight. When their washing machine broke in November, they had to put the new one on a credit card. They could not afford college for either of their sons. One is in the Marines, and the other, a high school senior, just enlisted.

Image Credit... The New York Times

“We’re not living in any rich, high-income way,” said Ms. Taylor, 37, who, together with her husband, protested the public-sector bill in Columbus this month.

“What are they wanting?” she said of the bill. “For everyone to be making minimum wage?”

Wages at the bottom of the labor market have stagnated since 1970, with inflation gobbling up gains made over the years. The federal minimum wage buys a lot less today; it represented just 38 percent of the average hourly wage for private, nonsupervisory workers in 2010, down from 47 percent in 1970, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.