Topic: Minimum wage: who sets it, how often, and who it covers
What does Indonesia require?
Everyday topic
Indonesia runs its minimum wage on two layers: the provincial UMP (Upah Minimum Provinsi) and the district/city UMK (Upah Minimum Kabupaten/Kota), which can only be set higher than the UMP, never lower. Under Government Regulation 36/2021 (as amended by Regulation 51/2023) and Regulation 49/2025, each province's Regional Wage Council — made up of labor representatives, employer representatives, government officials, and academics — proposes a figure; the governor must announce the UMP by November 21 at the latest, and district/city heads must announce the UMK by November 30. Starting in 2026, the central government stopped setting one uniform national percentage increase; instead each province works out its own actual figure, within a range the center provides, based on local economic growth, labor's contribution to the regional economy, and how far wages sit below the region's decent living needs (KHL) — formally acknowledging that the 34 provinces will not all get the same raise. The 2026 high is Jakarta's, set at Rp5,729,876 a month under Governor's Decision No. 1142/2025 (announced December 23, 2025), up 6.17% from 2025; West Sumatra, by contrast, went from Rp2,994,193 in 2025 to Rp3,182,955 in 2026. There is no single national figure, and even the percentage increase itself is not uniform across the country.
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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