# usaref Wage Check – North American Minimum Wage Reference

> usaref Wage Check – North American Minimum Wage Reference is a paid API for AI agents from usaref.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.005/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-14).

Returns the current official minimum wage for Canada or the United States as authoritative JSON with a citation to the primary government source, effective date, last-confirmed date, and staleness flag.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://usaref.dev/v1/answers/wage-check
- Price: $0.005/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-14
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/usaref-wage-check-north-american-minimum-wage-reference-cf151042
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_2DMEZbprMwoPGR_wdbFK-

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability usaref-wage-check-north-american-minimum-wage-reference-cf151042
```

Example prompt: What is the current national minimum wage in Canada? I need the official value with a government source and effective date so I can verify our payroll is compliant.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need a machine-readable, citation-backed minimum wage value for Canada or the United States with provenance metadata (effective date, last-confirmed date, staleness flag, and official source URL). It is preferable to scraping government sites when you need structured JSON output with reliability metadata, and is particularly suited for compliance checks, payroll automation, or regulatory reference tasks where auditability of the source matters.

## Known failure modes

- Unsupported country code returns an error or empty result
- Stale flag set to true if the underlying government source has changed since last confirmation
- Network or payment (x402) failure returns no data
- Missing or malformed query parameters may return an error response
- Value may lag a real government change if not yet re-confirmed

## How this service works

Authoritative North American government reference values as clean JSON: central-bank policy rates, VAT rates, national minimum wages and public holidays for Canada (ca), United States (us). Every value carries a citation to its official primary source (government gazette or central-bank statement), an effective date, a last-confirmed date and a staleness flag.

## Output

A JSON object containing the minimum wage value and unit (e.g. dollars per hour), the country code, the series identifier, the effective date of the current rate, the date the value was last confirmed against official sources, a boolean staleness flag, a source object with the official government URL and citation name, and a disclaimer about independent status.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "properties": {
   "type": "string"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "unit": "percent",
  "notes": "The 15 July 2026 release states verbatim: 'The Bank of Canada today held its target for the overnight rate at 2.25%, with the Bank Rate at 2.5% and the deposit rate at 2.20%.' effective_from is 2025-10-29, the date of the last CHANGE (a 25 bp cut from 2.50% to 2.25%), not the date of the most recent reaffirmation — the Bank has since held at 2.25% at all SIX subsequent fixed announcement dates: 10 December 2025, 28 January 2026, 18 March 2026, 29 April 2026, 10 June 2026 and 15 July 2026. The full 2026 FAD schedule published by the Bank in August 2025 is 28 January, 18 March, 29 April, 10 June, 15 July, 2 September, 28 October and 9 December, with the Monetary Policy Report released alongside the January, April, July and October decisions. Canada's operating band is 25 bp wide: the Bank Rate (upper limit, standing liquidity facility) is the target +25 bp = 2.50%, and the deposit rate (lower limit, remuneration on settlement balances) is 2.20% — 5 bp below target, a spread the Bank narrowed from the earlier target-minus-25bp convention. The target for the overnight rate is the correct headline policy rate; do not substitute the Bank Rate. Next scheduled fixed announcement date: 2 September 2026. bankofcanada.ca serves clean HTML and is reliably fetchable.",
  "stale": false,
  "value": 2.25,
  "series": "policy-rate",
  "source": {
   "url": "https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2026/07/fad-press-release-2026-07-15/",
   "name": "Bank of Canada, Fixed Announcement Date press release 15 July 2026, 'Bank of Canada maintains the policy rate at 2¼%' (decision under the Bank of Canada Act, RSC 1985, c. B-2); rate level set by the FAD press release of 29 October 2025"
  },
  "country": "CA",
  "disclaimer": "Independent service, not affiliated with any government. Verify against the cited official source before legal or financial use.",
  "effective_from": "2025-10-29",
  "last_confirmed": "2026-07-20"
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/usaref-wage-check-north-american-minimum-wage-reference-cf151042/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from usaref.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/usaref.dev/llms.txt)