A new report by Yahoo Finance, using Occupational Employment Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), shows the lowest-paying jobs in all 50 states pay an annual wage between $18,000 and $26,000 per year.

Most of these low-paying jobs were in the restaurant industry. The report discovered the most common low-paying jobs were cooking, prepping, and serving food. On a geographical basis, the lowest paying jobs were situated in the Rust Belt, Deep South, and Midwest.

Ticket takers, ushers, and lobby attendants were the second-most common low-paying jobs across the country.

"Jobs are low-paying for one of two reasons," David Neumark, professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine told Yahoo Finance. "There's a lot of supply and not much demand. And they're very low-skilled. I mean, how much skill does it take to collect movies at the movie theater, right?"

Yahoo Finance points out that workers in the restaurant industry from Alabama to Washington were paid poorly, but there were exceptional variations in wages for the same jobs. Food preparation and servers made an annual wage of $18,680 in Alabama, the same position in Washington paid $25,550.

The reason for the pay gap in both states is due to the cost of living. Alabama was ranked as the 11th cheapest state to live while Washington was 38th, according to the Cost of Living Index by the Missouri Department of Economic Development.

The lowest-paid job was in Louisiana, where gaming and sports book writers and runners made $17,820.

A little more than 60% of the workforce is paid at hourly rates, according to the BLS, and out of that, 1.3 million earned less than the federal minimum wage.

And with inflation moving higher, the average American worker can barely survive, nevertheless purchase a home. Meanwhile, most have insurmountable students loans and aboustely no savings to whether the upcoming recession.