More families earning less

WASHINGTON — The ranks of low-wage working families increased by 350,000 between 2002 and 2006, to nearly 9.6 million -- more than one in four of the nation's working families with children.

The report by the Working Poor Families Project, an advocacy group that analyzed census data, defined low-wage families as those earning less than double the poverty rate. For a family of four, that would have been an annual income of $41,228 or less in 2006.

The report's author, Brandon Roberts, attributed the increase to the growth in low-paying jobs, such as healthcare aides and cashiers, that form an increasing share of the nation's service-based economy.

Overall, the report said, more than one in five jobs in 2006 paid poverty-level wages.