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# Lowest Rate of Wages

## Definition

The minimum wage below which it seems impossible to reduce the ordinary wages of labour for any considerable time, which must at least be sufficient to maintain the labourer and enable them to bring up a family, otherwise the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.

## Source Chapter

Book I, Chapter 8

## Context

Identified as the natural floor for wages determined by the necessity of maintaining workers and their families, below which labour supply would eventually diminish.

## Economic Domain

Distribution

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