starvation wages
Americanplural noun
Etymology
Origin of starvation wages
First recorded in 1885–90
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Unions and workers complain of "starvation wages" which have been frozen since 2022.
From Barron's • Apr. 9, 2026
The median Googler earned $279,802, hardly starvation wages.
From New York Times • Jun. 30, 2023
Which in turn added pressure for senators to, you know, do something to make sure the people who serve them food and clean their toilets earn better than starvation wages.
From Washington Post • Mar. 24, 2016
He was a nice, quiet child, they told me, who hunted doves and meerkat, and helped cook and farm as the family eked out a meagre existence: no electricity or running water, starvation wages.
From The Guardian • Jun. 6, 2015
Where large quantities of nuts are available, commercial cracking by machine methods will be increasingly used in the future, especially if economic conditions so far improve that people will no longer work for starvation wages.
From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting Downington, Pennsylvania, September 11 and 12, 1933 by Northern Nut Growers Association
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
