Wages in the U.S. vary so widely, it is very hard to pin down the avg 'salary.' Because of the shear size of the country, region wages vary too. A government job in the north might be a 'crappy' paying job, but in certain parts of the south its a pretty sweet deal. With minimum wage so low, the spread between unskilled labor and 'skilled' labor is pretty large. Interestingly enough, when the minimum wage gets raised, it is just going to be another step to make the middle class 'poorer'. If minimum wage goes up, the prices of everything will go as well. People will have more 'money' to spend on the bare necesities so the cost of said necesities will go up accordingly. Meanwhile, your $20-$25 /hr you fought so hard to make, is suddenly worth less. *sigh* Being a young person, the immediate thought is 'Sweet, higher minimum wage means my part time job will actually MEAN something to me financially now' In reality, after thinking about it, my thought becomes 'Middle class getting poorer. *expletive deleted*' But, I digress.
Let's say the avg starting engineering job with a B.S. degree is something like ~$50-60k U.S. I honestly don't know what minimum wage is anymore because it seems various states are in the process of increasing it. In a lot of places in the country $40-45k is a pretty good salary. In other parts you can make that much and not even break even living somewhat conservatively.