> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.symmetry.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Minimum wage concepts

> How Payroll Point selects minimum wage rates for a work location, and where the rates surface across Maps, Batch, the Wage Rates tab, and the API.

<Note>
  Minimum wage rates are a licensed add-on to Payroll Point. Without it, no minimum wage data is returned and the Wage Rates tab is hidden. See [Minimum wage add-on](/prp/overview/mw-add-on).
</Note>

For clients who license the add-on, Payroll Point determines minimum wage rates using the same geocoding and shapefile matching it already runs for taxes. It geocodes the work location, applies it against the geospatial boundary files, and returns every applicable rate for that location.

Rate determination works differently from tax determination in one important way: rather than resolving to a single answer, a lookup returns every rate that applies at every level of government covering that location. The pages in this section explain why, and how to pick the rate a given employee is owed.

## The concepts

| Page                                                                         | What it covers                                                                                              |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Authority levels](/prp/core-concepts/mw-authority-levels)                   | The six levels of government that can set a rate, and why one address returns several at once.              |
| [Rate inheritance](/prp/core-concepts/mw-rate-inheritance)                   | What happens when a city or county sets no rate of its own.                                                 |
| [Rate types](/prp/core-concepts/mw-rate-types)                               | Matching an employee to the right rate: regular, tipped, exempt, plus industry and employer-size overrides. |
| [Minimum wage unique IDs](/prp/core-concepts/mw-uid-elements)                | Reading the six segments of an `mwUid`.                                                                     |
| [Unincorporated area rates](/prp/core-concepts/mw-unincorporated-area-rates) | When a county rate is returned and when it is omitted.                                                      |

## Where these rates appear in Payroll Point

| Surface            | What you get                                                                                                                                             |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Maps**           | Applicable rates for the work location, returned with the tax results. See [Data returned from maps](/prp/portal/maps-data-returned#minimum-wage-rates). |
| **Batch**          | Rates for every work location in the file. See [Data returned from Batch](/prp/portal/batch-data-returned#minimum-wage-data).                            |
| **Wage Rates tab** | The rate catalogue itself, browsable without an address. See [Wage Rates overview](/prp/portal/wage-rates).                                              |
| **API**            | Three add-on endpoints under `/prp/v1/minimumwage/`. See [Minimum wage add-on](/prp/overview/mw-add-on#where-it-appears).                                |

<Info>
  The rate data is the same data Symmetry Minimum Wage Finder returns, so these concepts apply to both products. What differs is the endpoint prefix. See [Minimum wage add-on](/prp/overview/mw-add-on#add-on-or-standalone-product).
</Info>