Minimum wage

A minimum wage is the lowest pay rate employers may legally provide to workers covered by a wage law or regulation. It may be set hourly, daily, or by another pay period.

Statutory minimum wage: A legally mandated minimum pay rate established by legislation or regulation. This is the standard legal form of a minimum wage.
Employment effects of minimum wages: Changes in employment attributable to a change in the legally required wage floor. Whether employers reduce hiring or hours is a central consequence under study.
Living wage: A wage level intended to cover the basic needs of a worker and their household. It is defined by adequacy for living costs, unlike a legal minimum set by statute.
Minimum wage in New Zealand: The system of statutory wage floors first introduced nationally in New Zealand in 1894. New Zealand enacted the first national minimum-wage system.
Minimum wage and inflation: The relationship between changes in price levels and the real value of minimum wages. Policymakers must decide whether and how wage floors should keep pace with prices.
Wage floor: A lower bound on the price employers can pay for labor. Minimum wages operate as wage floors in covered labor markets.
Card and Krueger minimum wage study: A 1994 study comparing fast-food employment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania after New Jersey raised its minimum wage. Its unexpected findings reshaped empirical debate about employment effects.
Earned income tax credit: A refundable tax credit that supplements earnings for eligible low- and moderate-income workers. It raises workers’ after-tax income without requiring employers to pay a higher wage.
Trade Boards Act 1909: A British law that created boards empowered to set minimum wages in selected low-paid industries. It introduced wage-setting boards as a response to exceptionally low pay.
Minimum wage indexation: A policy that adjusts a minimum wage automatically according to an economic index. Indexation can prevent the wage floor from eroding, but its formula remains contested.

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