subsistence wage
Britishnoun
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.
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.
From The New Yorker ● May 9, 2019
One’s ability to obtain a subsistence wage was directly tied to the amount of effort one applied to the work process.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 20, 2018
Adam Smith, Ricardo, held that the worker was forever doomed to a ''minimum subsistence wage.''
From Time Magazine Archive
But that's only the subsistence wage, to tide people over so they can put squab on the table and pay the housekeepers until the real money is doled out in annual bonuses.
From Time Magazine Archive
A margin of unemployed labour means a bare subsistence wage for low-skilled labour, and it means this wage earned under industrial conditions, such as we find under the "sweating system."
From Problems of Poverty by J. A. (John Atkinson) Hobson
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.
