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minimum wage

minimum wage

846 2.4
The least money employers can pay workers by law or contract for their work
  • noun
  • /ˈmɪnɪməm weɪdʒ/
translation icon : salario mínimo
  • You can't live in Silicon Valley and make minimum wage today.
  • pay the minimum wage
  • minimum wage jobs
  • minimum wage laws

They will shout at some unfortunate high school minimum wage clerk at a store.

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Examples

  • Well, good luck supporting your family on minimum wage.

  • Should we raise the minimum wage to a living wage?

  • I was making just minimum wage with that job.

  • During that time that the prices went up, the minimum wage was never raised.

  • Working for minimum wage was never my style.

  • Margaret was making only minimum wage, a fact her father repeatedly brought up.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • The schedule is very flexible and it pays more than minimum wage.

  • Unemployment is down, employment in the formal sector is up, and the minimum wage has increased notably.

    Academic text (2008)
  • They make more than minimum wage and they don't pay taxes.

  • The legislation also raised the minimum wage, which now stands at $7.25 per hour.

Synonyms

wage floor
vsminimum wage
  • Specialized
1 5.6

The lowest amount of money an employer can legally pay a worker

also covers pay limits set by contracts as well as laws

How High

living wage
18 3.4
wage
1.4
minimum wage
846 2.4

Surface Forms

minimum wage singular
minimum wages plural

Morphology

minimum + wage

The meaning is directly composed from 'minimum' (smallest amount) + 'wage' (payment to a worker): a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it refers to the lowest pay. This compound follows a common, cross-linguistic noun+noun/adj+noun pattern and does not require idiomatic knowledge or metaphoric extension.

Etymology

Minimum wage comes from the image of minimum, meaning the smallest, and wage, meaning pay. It was set by law to make sure workers earn at least that amount, so minimum wage means 'the lowest pay allowed'.