Well, the real truth is that we're all able to survive on very low wages. If your options are shit job that delays death 10 years or die now, you take the shit job.

Bare survival is very cheap in America.

Its really not. Medical care and insurance is very very expensive. Rent that is actually near somewhere you can work is very expensive. Cars are expensive. Keeping a beater running can be more expensive than making car payments on a cheapish car.

There are niches wherein some can survive on little because they can rent a room or stay with family, because they don't have medical issues and can go without insurance etc etc. These are situational factors that don't scale to a whole society or even the whole of an individuals life.

All of these things are "luxuries" in the US.

The poor often go largely without healthcare. Their health deteriorates severely, but it's better than just starving to death. A lot of people have very long bus commutes to work because they can't afford a car or housing close to their workplace or to the best public transportation. Their credit score is probably no good, so they can't get a loan on a "cheapish" car. So if they do get a car, they're stuck maintaining a beater.

They may not have living parents who can help them, or their parents may be just as poor as they are.

Your assumptions are all based on a middle-class individual from middle-class upbringing. That doesn't make any sense when we're talking about the plight of the poor, who are the ones most affected by government assistance, minimum wage, etc.

That's definitely beyond survival. Survival is just living. I think I could survive on about $10 a day in America in the right place, i.e. I could do that indefinitely and live into my 50s.

Indoor shelter isn't necessary for survival. Motor vehicles aren't essential for survival. And you go to the ER and get emergency care if you're in trouble.

The base line for survival is pretty low. It's just "continue to not be dead".

I think you are stretching the argument beyond reasoning. Nobody would show up to walmart in between shitting in the street and sleeping in a tent and trying to live and remain healthy on food that doesn't require a fridge while hoping that nobody stole even those final earthly possessions while I was working. At some point where the bottom 25-30% are living like this people either organize and force change or collectively burn shit down and kill the rich.

You'd think that, but my experience living in the Third World is that people will accept a lot. i.e. the market clearing price can definitely drop below what you think is the minimum wage for a decent living.

All of this is just to say that, empirically, I have seen the following to not be true in the sense that you mean it (required to live being short for "required to live a decent standard of living"), though it is true in the literal sense that I described it:

> In a truly free market with no government fingers on the scale no worker would ever work for less than is required to live or at least they wouldn't work for long at such a wage.