That's not the problem though. The problem is that many employers take advantage of people by only hiring them on a part-time basis so that way they don't have to provide any health insurance (which means of course that the employee just goes without any health insurance since they won't be able to afford it on a minimum wage income, and won't be able to get Medicaid either since in many states the maximum income one can have and still qualify for Medicaid is right about $9,000 per year -- depending on the state. And quite often even if one has a master's degree, employers are still only willing to pay minimum wage at part time too. When the minimum wage in the other advanced western countries is double and triple the U.S. minimum wage, you know something's broken.