Minimum wage is the genome of social and labor relations
Institutional organization of wages in any country is the "solar plexus" of social and labor relations and social policy of a state. The socio-political transformations in 1990s in Russia led to fundamental changes in this area. The impact of state bodies on social and labor relations underwent substantial transformation. Now it is mainly the prerogative of employers, not the state. The previous model of the centralized public administration regulating in detail all aspects of labor and wages in this area is reduced to a minimum wage. The article deals with the conceptual and methodological issues of wage-and-salary structure and labor remuneration, their relations, the role of the minimum wage in organizing the national model of wages, the criteria for establishing its minimum standards that determine the material well-being of the population. In Russia, wages are determined only regarding the employment period. Neither the dependency burden, nor the insurance savings on pension payments are considered. As a result, the cost of wages and social insurance in the country is two times lower than in economically developed countries. The article presents the practices of wages and labor remuneration regulation in Russia and foreign countries. The author highlights new challenges and offers the ways to develop institutions of labor income of the population on a single conceptual basis.