minimum wage

noun

1

: living wage

2

: the lowest wage paid or permitted to be paid

specifically : a wage fixed by legal authority or by contract as the least that may be paid either to employed persons generally or to a particular category of employed persons

Examples of minimum wage in a Sentence

Congress will vote on a bill to raise the minimum wage.

Recent Examples on the Web

Sudden closures and delays in wages and severance pay have also prompted street protests and clashes with authorities, with the minimum wage still a persistent flashpoint. — Jasmin Malik Chua, Footwear News, 29 July 2026

Gray has aligned with the left wing of the Democratic Party, and supports Medicare for All, raising the minimum wage to $25, reparations and scaling back America’s military footprint. — Jack Harvel july 28, Kansas City Star, 28 July 2026

Every person in his story who changed his trajectory—a mother, a father, a nurse making minimum wage, an inmate with nothing left to lose—did it in an ordinary moment, with words anyone could have said and most didn’t. — Rodger Dean Duncan, Forbes.com, 28 July 2026

Johnson succeeding would not automatically provide unionization rights, since the case involves the FLSA, which concerns minimum wage and overtime wage rights, and not the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which provides for unionization. — Michael McCann, Sportico.com, 27 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1860, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for minimum wage

• alienage
• age
• gauge
• phage
• plage
• rage
• stage
• assuage
• backstage
• bocage
• downstage
• engage

Kids Definition

minimum wage

noun

: a wage fixed (as by law) as the least that may be paid to employed persons

Legal Definition

minimum wage

noun

: a wage fixed by contract or especially by law as the least that may be paid either to employees generally or to a particular category of employees compare scale