In fact, working for shitty pay is WORSE than being unemployed – you spend hours a day doing work that doesn't lead to any personal growth and just takes up your time and health AND still can't afford to live. But in desperation you'd still hang on to that, because what else to do? Beg on the street? Just die?

That's no way to treat people, but I assure you, many executives would not hesitate to sentence their employees to such fate if they could. They would squeeze the poor out like lemons and just throw them out when they're done. That's because companies are authoritarian and their ruling class have no obligation at all to people at the bottom instead preferring to enrich themselves. That's why trickle–down economics is fiction. The government however is democratic and supposed to prevent exploitation of its people. Hence the minimum wage.