Additional demographic information on the state’s poverty wage earners indicates 25 percent of white workers, 38 percent of black workers and 42 percent of Hispanic workers earn a poverty wage.

“Those making less than a living wage are lucky to maintain year-round employment at 40 hours week. These workers often don’t have health insurance and little retirement benefits,” Dresser said. “Bad jobs come in bad packages.”

The release of the report comes the same week that Gov. Scott Walker’s administration denied a complaint filed by the labor group Wisconsin Jobs Now and 100 workers who attempted to have the state’s minimum wage raised by using a little-known clause in state law. The law states the minimum wage “shall not be less than a living wage.”

Citing the fact many of those earning poverty wages receive public assistance, the state’s Department of Workforce Development rejected the request to raise the minimum wage.

Walker has said he would prefer to create jobs that pay two or three times the minimum wage. Mary Burke, the Democratic challenger facing Walker in November, supports raising the state’s minimum wage.