For large categories of workers, wages are inadequate.
Good jobs were hard to find for most categories of workers during that period.
In the past, the tax code gave many categories of workers special status.
The percentage is low primarily because large categories of workers do not qualify under the states' rules.
LEGISLATION FAILED Would have raised the state minimum wage for most categories of workers to $6.75 an hour from $5.15.
That was until the credit was eliminated for all categories of workers except veterans last year, before the reinstatement.
"This legislation really tries to focus on these categories of workers who are notoriously underpaid," said Andrew Neuman, a spokesman for County Executive Andrew J. Spano.
The crisis is accentuating the discrepancies within the Italian unemployment support system, which is structured to benefit select categories of workers.
Most agricultural and domestic workers were black, and the legislation was not passed until those two categories of workers were excluded.
Federal law sets the minimum wage for most workers at $5.15, but it allows states to set lower minimums for a few categories of workers.
This, however, does not exclude the possibility that, within firms, the nature of the work may vary between different categories of workers.
