The history of minimum wage is about the attempts and measures governments have made to introduce, ascertain, uphold and enforce a minimum wage.

Mesopotamia Amongst the earliest minimum wage provisions were introduced in Mesopotamia during the reign of Hammurabi,A History of Advertising The First 300,000 Years By Jef I Richards, 2022, P.18 with a minimum wage statute introduced in which the wages earned by artisans and other groups were set by law.

India Following its independence from Britain in 1947, a Minimum Wages Act was passed in India in 1948 that required Central or Provincial governments to fix minimum rates of pay to employees.The Indian Labour Year Book Volumes 1947-1948, Publisher: Manager of Publications, P.56 Prior to this law, however, there was a long history in India of wage regulation to benefit workers. Wages in ancient India are said to have been high, Work and Wages of Labour: A Study of Ancient India by Pratibha Goyal, Mini Goyal and Shailja Goyal, Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012, P.4 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) with lawgiversBetter Management & Effective Leadership Through the Indian Scriptures By Narayanji Misra, Publisher: Pustak Mahal, 2007, P.152 emphasising (as noted by one study) “that the wages should enable the worker and his family to lead a normal standard of living.”Work and Wages of Labour: A Study of Ancient India by Pratibha Goyal, Mini Goyal and Shailja Goyal, Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012, P.4 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) The Arthashastra laid down that workers should be safeguarded from low pay and exploitation, with rulers being responsible for ensuring this.Minimum Wages, Collective Bargaining and Economic Development in Asia and Europe A Labour Perspective, By Denis Gregory, Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, originally published in 2015 During the Mauryan period, for instance, the employees of factories under civil boards were paid fair wages by municipal boards.Third Way By Dattopant Thengadi, Publisher: Rashtrotthana sahitya, originally published in 1985 In Ancient India, according to one study, “Wages were decided on the basis of careful surveys of standard of living and cost of living.”Work and Wages of Labour: A Study of Ancient India by Pratibha Goyal, Mini Goyal and Shailja Goyal, Prastuti: Vol. I, No. 1, July-December 2012, P.7 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

New Zealand New Zealand enacted national minimum wage laws in 1894 by the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which, unlike the wages board of Victoria, established arbitration boards to enforce compulsory arbitration.

Australia In 1896, the Colony of Victoria amended the Factories and Shops Act to create a wages board. The wages board did not set a universal minimum wage; rather it set basic wages for six industries that were considered to pay low wages. First enacted as a four-year experiment, the wages board was renewed in 1900 and made permanent in 1904; by that time it covered 150 different industries.Waltman, Jerold. "The Politics of the Minimum Wage." University of Illinois Press. 2000

By 1902, other Australian jurisdictions, such as New South Wales and Western Australia, had also formed wages boards.

In 1907, the Harvester decision was handed down in Australia. It introduced the influential idea of a 'living wage' for a man, his wife, and three children to "live in frugal comfort".

In 1912, the Industrial Arbitration Act of South Australia provided at section 22 that:

The Court shall not have power to order or prescribe wages which do not secure to the employee affected a living wage. "Living wage" means a sum sufficient for the normal and reasonable needs of the average employee living in the locality where the work under consideration is done or is to be done.

Following that law, the South Australian Industrial Court would periodically declare what a living wage was in South Australia, as follows:

Date Adult man's daily wage In 2023 AUD 5 September 1916 9 shillings $54.19 24 October 1918 10 shillings and 6 pence $56.11 25 June 1920 12 shillings and 6 pence $51.88 15 July 1921 13 shillings and 3 pence $62.94 11 April 1922 12 shillings and 11 pence $63.47 19 October 1923 13 shillings and 1 pence $62.84 30 April 1924 13 shillings and 8 pence $66.39 29 July 1925 14 shillings and 3 pence $69.22 11 October 1930 12 shillings and 6 pence $61.42 17 August 1931 10 shillings and 6 pence $57.55 12 April 1933 10 shillings and 6 pence $63.22 18 October 1935 11 shillings $63.55 18 December 1936 11 shillings and 7 pence $66.02 4 November 1937 12 shillings and 4 pence $67.59 19 December 1938 13 shillings $69.47 9 November 1940 14 shillings $70.41 12 November 1941 14 shillings and 6 pence $69.65 30 September 1942 15 shillings and 8 pence $69.04

On 14 December 2005, the Australian Fair Pay Commission was established under the Workplace Relations Amendment (WorkChoices) Act 2005. The responsibility of the commission includes the setting of the standard federal minimum wage, replacing the role of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission that took submissions from a variety of sources to determine appropriate minimum wages.

The Australian Fair Pay Commission was replaced by Fair Work Australia in 2010, later renamed the Fair Work Commission.

France A national minimum wage was introduced in France in 1950,Economic Ideas, Policy and National Culture A Comparison of Three Market Economies, Editor: Eelke de Jong, 2014 although there is a long history in that country of governments attempting to regulate pay. In 1848, the first step taken to help low-paid workers was carried out when Parliament decreed (as noted by one study) “that the wages of subcontracted labour were to be investigated if the competent authorities deemed that workers were being unfairly remunerated.”Low Pay Review Issues 33-38, 1988, Publisher: Low Pay Unit, Limited, P.21 Later, in 1898, a decree was issued that regulated wages in public works projects.Strikes in France, 1830-1968 By Edward Shorter, Charles Tilly, 1974, P.145 Minimum wages were also advocated in the platforms of various Socialist parties in the late NineteenthThe socialism of to-day, tr. by G.H. Orpen. Together with an account of socialism in England, by the translator By Émile Louis V. baron de Laveleye P.264Wine, Sugar, and the Making of Modern France Global Economic Crisis and the Racialization of French Citizenship, 1870-1910 By Elizabeth Heath, Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2014, P.120 and early Twentieth centuries.MODERN SOCIALISM AS SET FORTH BY SOCIALISTS IN THEIR SPEECHES, WRITINGS,AND PROGRAMMES EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY R. C. K. ENSOR THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED, LONDON AND NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS 45, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1910, P.348

United Kingdom

The minimum wage was a major factor in British industrial relations from 1909 until the 1930s.

Following a study of the minimum wage laws in Australia and New Zealand the Liberal Party acted to set up a minimum wage in the most heavily sweated or underpaid industries, as part of a broad range of social reforms. Winston Churchill, president of the Board of Trade, introduced the Trade Boards Act in 1909. It created boards that set minimum wage criteria that were legally enforceable. The main provision was to set minimum wages in certain trades with the history of low wages, because of surplus of available workers, the presence of women workers, or the lack of skills. At first it applied to four industries: chain-making, ready-made dresses, paper-box making, and the machine-made lace and finishing trade. About 70 per cent of their 200,000 workers were women.Sheila Blackburn, "Ideology and social policy: the origins of the Trade Boards Act." The Historical Journal 34#1 (1991): 43-64.

Coal mining was added in 1912, following a major strike. In 1913, five additional wage boards were set up that covered Hollowware making, shirt making, sugar confectionery and food preserving, tin box making, and linen and cotton embroidery, along with a portion of the laundry industry. These extensions covered an additional 140,000 workers. Unions pushed for the 1918 Act to greatly extend the coverage of minimum wages.Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, volume 2: Economic Maturity, 1860–1939 (2004) pp 311-21. In 1917, "Whitley councils" or Joint industrial councils were established in 41 industries with over 2 million employees to bring together unions and management to discuss not only wages and conditions but also a wide range of related issues such as jobs, security, benefits and technical education.

Starting in 1909, Liberals, led especially by David Lloyd George, promoted the idea of a minimum wage for farm workers. Resistance of landowners was strong, but success was achieved by 1924.Alun Howkins and Nicola Verdon. "The state and the farm worker: the evolution of the minimum wage in agriculture in England and Wales, 1909–24." Agricultural history review 57.2 (2009): 257-274. According to Robin Gowers and Timothy J. Hatton, the impact In England and Wales was significant. They estimate that it raised wages for farm labourers by 15 per cent by 1929, and by more than 20 per cent in the 1930s. It reduced the employment of such labourers by 54,000 (6.5 per cent) in 1929 and 97,000 (13.3 per cent) in 1937. They say, "The minimum wage lifted out of poverty many families of farm labourers who remained employed, but it significantly lowered the incomes of farmers, particularly during the 1930s."Robin Gowers and Timothy J. Hatton,, "The origins and early impact of the minimum wage in agriculture." Economic History Review 50#1 (1997): 82-103.

By the 1920s, a new perspective was offered by reformers emphasising the usefulness of Family Allowance (later renamed "Child Benefit") targeted at low-income families to relieve poverty without distorting the labour market.John Macnicol, Movement for Family Allowances, 1918-45: A Study in Social Policy Development (1980). The trade unions and the Labour Party adopted this view. In 1945, family allowances were introduced; minimum wages faded from view. Talk resumed in the 1970s, with an agricultural minimum wage remaining, but in the 1980s the Thatcher administration made it clear it would not accept a national minimum wage. Finally, with the return of Labour, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 set a minimum of £3.60 per hour, with lower rates for younger workers. It largely affected workers in high turnover service industries such as fast food restaurants, and members of ethnic minorities.Pat Thane, Cassell's Companion to Twentieth Century Britain (2002) pp 267-68.

United States In 1912, the state of Massachusetts, United States, set minimum wages for women and children, and several other states enacted similar protective laws.Folbre, Nancy, Greed, Lust and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009 ()), p. 276 & n. 37 (author prof. economics, Univ. of Mass. Amherst). Under the Massachusetts laws, there was "the power only to investigate conditions and recommend changes". From 1912 to 1923, fourteen other States (along with Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia) enacted minimum wage laws of their own, although two (as noted by one study) “were repealed soon after enactment.”State Labor Laws in Transition From Protection to Equal Status for Women By Jane Walstedt, United States, Women's Bureau, 1976, P.4

In the United States, statutory minimum wages were first introduced nationally in 1938 by president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Note: Date enacted was 1 April 1999