Topic: Minimum wage: who sets it, how often, and who it covers
What does Brazil require?
Everyday topic
Brazil's Constitution, Article 7(IV), lists a nationally uniform minimum wage as a basic worker right — one large enough to meet a worker's and family's basic needs for housing, food, education, health, leisure, clothing, hygiene, transport, and social security — and requires it to be “periodically adjusted to preserve its purchasing power.” In practice, the Minimum Wage Valuation Policy Law (Law No. 14,663, passed by Congress in August 2023) writes the adjustment formula into statute: each year's raise equals the prior year's cumulative INPC consumer-price inflation plus the real GDP growth rate from two years earlier. The president signs a decree at the end of each year to formally announce the figure, effective January 1 the following year — a single national number, with no regional variation. Decree No. 12,797, signed by President Lula on December 23, 2025 and published in the Official Gazette (DOU) on December 24, 2025, sets the minimum wage from January 1, 2026 at R$1,621 a month — R$54.04 a day, R$7.37 an hour. But under Complementary Law No. 103 of 2000, some more economically developed states (such as São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul) may set their own regional minimum wage (piso salarial regional), which by law can only be set higher than the national figure, never lower. So Brazil's minimum wage is nationally uniform on the surface, but the system itself deliberately lets its more developed states opt into a higher floor.
What is this topic?
Taiwan's Minimum Wage Act (enacted 2023) is decided each year by a 21-member Minimum Wage Review Council that meets in the third quarter; the rate for 2026 is NT$29,500 a month or NT$196 an hour, a single national figure with no regional variation.
Japan runs 47 separate rates instead: local minimum wage councils in each prefecture set their own number after the central council issues a nationwide guideline — the 2026 guideline points to a weighted average of ¥1,176 an hour, but the actual figure differs prefecture by prefecture.
China's Regulation on Minimum Wages requires provincial governments to review their rates at least every two years, and a single province can still run two to four tiers — Shaanxi's 2026 notice sets ¥2,376 a month in its top tier and ¥2,140 in its lowest.
The US federal minimum has sat at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009 — seventeen years unchanged — while states are free to set higher floors (Washington, D.C. runs $18.40) or simply default to the federal rate.
India's Code on Wages, 2019 only became fully operative on April 1, 2026, extending statutory minimum-wage coverage from the roughly 30% of workers under "scheduled employment" to nearly everyone — but the binding national floor wage it authorizes was still under consultation as of August 2026, with the only reference point being a non-binding ₹176-a-day benchmark unchanged since 2017.
Indonesia's 2025 regulation lets each of its 34 provincial governors set an annual UMP tied to local economic growth; Jakarta's 2026 figure, the country's highest, is Rp5,729,876 a month.
Brazil sets one national number by presidential decree, adjusted each year for the prior year's INPC inflation plus GDP growth two years back — R$1,621 a month from January 2026 — though a handful of states such as São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul are allowed under a 2000 law to set their own regional floor above it.
Sources and dates
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