Need-based minimum wage
Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A need-based minimum wage is a minimum wage worked out from what a standard working-class family needs to live: food, clothing, housing, fuel, education and medical costs. It is based on the norms of the 15th Indian Labour Conference (1957), plus additions made in the Reptakos Brett case (1991). It links the wage floor to a family's real needs, not just to what employers are willing to pay.
Example
The Anoop Satpathy committee (2019) used this approach and proposed a national minimum wage of about ₹375 a day.
Don't confuse with
- Floor wage: the Centre's base figure under the Code on Wages, below which no state can fix its minimum wage. A need-based wage is a way of calculating a wage. The floor wage is a legal limit.
Related concepts
- Labour laws
- Tripartism
- Floor wage
- Fair wage
- Living wage
- Lay-off
- Retrenchment
- Hire and fire
- Standing orders
- Fixed-term employment