subsistence wage

noun

1. the lowest wage upon which a worker and his family can survive

Example Sentences

Valentina Sleptsova challenged the president on why bananas from Ecuador are now cheaper in Russia than domestically-produced carrots and asked how her mother can survive on a “subsistence wage” with the cost of staples like potatoes so high, according to a recording of the annual event.

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Automobile plants and steel mills accepted that the price of doing business was guaranteeing their workers more than a subsistence wage.

Read more on The Guardian

We send £140m of clothing to landfill every year in the UK, much of it made by workers scratching a subsistence wage in poor conditions in countries such as Cambodia and Sri Lanka.

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She described the job as having changed in those years from a decent way to make a living to one that did not even offer a subsistence wage.

Read more on The New Yorker

One’s ability to obtain a subsistence wage was directly tied to the amount of effort one applied to the work process.

Read more on The Guardian