Underpaid

A wage or wages are payment for wage labour. It is generally paid either on a per-piece or per-hour basis.

Payment by wage contrasts with salaried work, in which the employer pays an arranged amount at steady intervals (such as a week or month) regardless of hours worked, with commission which conditions pay on individual performance, and with compensation based on the performance of the company as a whole. Waged employees may also receive tips or gratuity paid directly by clients and employee benefits which are non-monetary forms of compensation. Since wage labour is the predominant form of work, the term "wage" sometimes refers to all forms (or all monetary forms) of employee compensation.

Many governments impose minimum wage rates upon employers to protect society.

Wage labour involves the exchange of money for time spent at work (the latter quantity is termed labor power by Karl Marx and subsequent economists). As Moses I. Finley lays out the issue in The Ancient Economy:

The wage is the monetary measure corresponding to the standard units of working time (or to a standard amount of accomplished work, defined as a piece rate). The earliest such unit of time, still frequently used, is the day of work. The invention of clocks coincided with the elaborating of subdivisions of time for work, of which the hour became the most common, underlying the concept of an hourly wage.

Wages were paid in the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt,Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome.

Depending on the structure and traditions of different economies around the world, wage rates will be influenced by market forces (supply and demand), legislation, and tradition. Market forces are perhaps more dominant in the United States, while tradition, social structure and seniority, perhaps play a greater role in Japan.

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