Employees Earning Minimum Wage (OI5858)

This metric is intended to measure the number of employees earning exactly the minimum wage -- not above and not below.

Minimum wage is the lowest wage permitted by law or by a special agreement (such as with a labor union). Since the minimum wage varies according to geography, IRIS does not define a minimum wage. Organizations can refer to the minimum wage definition in the glossary for more resources on determining minimum wage(s) for their calculation(s).

Organizations interested in capturing living wage may instead use Employees Earning a Living Wage or Higher (OI4724). Organizations may also capture Employees Earning Lowest Wage (OI8296) to understand whether a portion of the company's workforce is paid below minimum wage.

This metric is multi-dimensional in regards to the five dimensions of impact. It may help describe the WHO dimension when the stakeholder group represented by the metric is the stakeholder group targeted by the investment or organization. It may also help measure the HOW MUCH Scale dimension, which helps estimate the number of the targeted stakeholders experiencing the outcome. For more on the alignment of IRIS metrics to the five dimensions of impact, see IRIS+ and the Five Dimensions of Impact. No single metric is sufficient to understand an impact; rather, metrics are selected as a set across all dimensions of impact. When possible, the selection of metrics to measure and describe the five dimensions should be based on best practice and evidence.