Using an absolute rather than a relative conception of “low-wage,” this paper offers aquantitative description of the nature of low-wage jobs and workers in the United States, andargues that low-wage jobs are a serious reason for concern. Although the latter may seemrather self-evident, both the public and the academic understandings of the deleterious welfareconsequences of low-wage jobs have been obscured by two oft-repeated arguments. The firstis that resource-pooling at the family or household level, in-kind public transfers and theEarned Income Tax Credit make the high prevalence of low-wage work an issue with a ratherminor normative import. The second is that the country is characterized by very high levels ofintra-generational upward mobility, and that only “the undeserving few” remain stuck in badjobs. To address these arguments I show that low-wage work very often results in materialdeprivation, and that a large share of low-wage workers gets trapped in low-wage jobs forlong periods of time, if not for their whole careers.