Wages

(wa'jez.) The compensation paid to those employed to perform any kind of labor or service; the term is, however, usually confined to the su nis paid to artisans, laborers, and servants. W. are modified by the agreeablene or disagreeable ne of the employment; the ease and cheapne , or difficulty and expense of learning it; its constancy or inconstancy; the great or little trust it supposes; the probability or improbability of succe in adopting it. The rate of W. is nece arily liable to great variation; it will naturally increase if the capital to be expended on manufactures, ., increase to a greater extent than the population; and it will diminish in opposite circumstances; but it never can remain long below what will be sufficient for the sustenance of the laborers, ., and their families; the rate at which they can support themselves having, in all cases, a serious effect on that of the W. they receive. See LABOR. [s. 946]