The Catholic Church teaches that a wage is not simply whatever an employer and worker happen to agree to. Because work is the activity of a person, and not a commodity, justice requires that ordinary work be able to support a dignified human life.

From Rerum Novarum (1891) onward, the Church has defended the idea of a just wage — and, classically, a family wage, one sufficient for a worker to support a household in reasonable comfort. Leo XIII taught that a wage ought not be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved worker; Pius XI and later popes developed this into the principle that pay should allow a family to live and to put something aside.

This does not settle every policy question — Catholics may prudently disagree about minimum-wage laws, labor markets, and the best means to the end. But it sets a moral horizon: an economy is measured in part by whether those who work can live. A good place to begin is Rerum Novarum and Laborem Exercens.