According to information provided by the Ministries’ of Labor the Central American countries, Costa Rica pays the highest minimum wages in the region, while Nicaragua the lowest.

Minimum wage is defined as the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their workers; equivalently it is the price floor below which workers may not sell their labor. This amount should allow workers to cover the basic needs of their family.

Each county’s labor authority has different ways of establishing their minimum wage, for instance, Costa Rica’s Ministry of Labor sets a minimum wage according to the occupation and the level of qualifications of a worker; while in Guatemala the minimum wage is divided into three groups: agricultural, non-agricultural, and of exports and maquila; in Nicaragua, minimum salaries are divided based on an international indicator Uniform Classifier of Economic Activity; Honduras and El Salvador have a similar system in which they classify the salaries according to the economic activity and the number of workers.

Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica make adjustments to the minimum wage ever year, in the Case of Costa Rica this was done every six months, while in Nicaragua it is also done annually but it applies from March one year to February of the following year, the increment is divided in two and applied per semester.

According to the exchange rate for November 16, the lowest minimum salary in Costa Rica is of US$518.54 for a non-qualified worker while in Nicaragua the lowest minimum salary is of US$123.30 for workers in the agricultural sector.

The increase in the minimum wage in Costa Rica this year was of 1.14%.

In Guatemala the workers of the exports and maquila sector are the ones that receive the lowest payment established in US$364.30; while in Honduras and El Salvador the agricultural sector receives the lowest wage for these countries, of US$297.91 and US$200.00 respectively.

The cost of life in each of the countries varies considerably and have a heavy impact in the establishment of the minimum wages.