While it's repeated ad nauseam, this was the intended purpose of the minimum wage, as quoted by FDR who signed the minimum wage into law:

“It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

It seems to be another case of naïve, clumsy legislation causing more problems than it solves.

I don't mean to make assumptions about your life or your conditions, but in scenario A you describe a reality where there are a meaningful number of people who would be content to sell their labor for less than $7.25 per hour. I do not find this believable, given how little that amount is in today's dollars. At the point that you're okay with working for, say, $5/hour, why work at all? What lifestyle permits that as an income? What percentage of people do you believe would be okay with this?

Additionally, you are describing an effect where removal of the minimum wage would result in more people working, but what of the wages of people who currently work for minimum wage? Clearly the jobs are economical at that rate, but I have a hard time believing that employers paying $7.25/hour would continue doing so if they weren't legally required to. I would be willing to wager my life savings that the loss in income associated with that would dwarf the amount of money being made by the hypothetical class of people you're describing.

In the case of most US states, I think it's fair to say that the minimum wage is moot. As you say, hardly anyone would consider working for less than that anyway. But why take away their freedom to do so?

Well I think for one there is a power imbalance between employees and employers that seems primed for abuse without some regulatory minimum.

Also is the goal to maximize the number in the workflow, or get people out of poverty? Having them work for less may increase employment figures but they'll still be in poverty. The minimum wage has shown to decrease employment but also lift the people employed out of poverty [1].

1. https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-Wage....

> Well I think for one there is a power imbalance between employees and employers that seems primed for abuse without some regulatory minimum.

If some employer is currently paying e.g. $10/hour when the minimum wage is $7.25/hour, why would that change if the minimum wage were $5/hour or $0?

If anything they might have to pay more, because the employee might prefer a job paying $5/hour to one that pays $10/hour but incurs $6/hour worth of commuting expense and then the original employer would have to pay $11/hour to retain them.

> Also is the goal to maximize the number in the workflow, or get people out of poverty?

These are not unrelated goals. Generally people who can't find work end up in poverty.

> The minimum wage has shown to decrease employment but also lift the people employed out of poverty

You don't need a study for this, it's exactly what you would expect to happen. If you raise the minimum wage to $10, some jobs that pay $9 are still sustainable at $10, so those pay $10, some aren't, so those people lose their jobs. The proportionality of each one is going to depend on current economic conditions and not be a universal constant.

But the part where you cause people to lose their jobs is bad -- in some cases it will exceed the entire benefit of the remaining people getting paid more, but either way what it's competing with isn't placebo, it's alternative policies to get people out of poverty. Why would you do the one that causes people to lose their jobs when there are several alternatives that don't?

No freedoms are being taken away, save for those of businesses that would like to increase their margins by paying their workers less.

These fictional people who would love to work for less than $7.25/hr are free to do gig work that nets them less. They are also free to panhandle on the side of freeway off-ramps, which I imagine many would prefer to the concept of being paid $5/hour to take orders from a person who lacks enough respect for their fellow man to pay them more than that.

The removal of the minimum wage would simply be a gift to employers taken from the pockets of actual workers. Businesses don't just pay the minimum wage out of the kindness of their hearts; to pay that wage is code for "I would pay you less if I could."

>No freedoms are being taken away [...]

>These fictional people who would love to work for less than $7.25/hr are free to do gig work that nets them less. They are also free to panhandle on the side of freeway off-ramps,

Being unable to work in a employment relationship, and forced to do "gig work" and "panhandle" doesn't count as "freedoms are being taken away"?

>The removal of the minimum wage would simply be a gift to employers taken from the pockets of actual workers. Businesses don't just pay the minimum wage out of the kindness of their hearts; to pay that wage is code for "I would pay you less if I could."

This is a case of fabricated options[1]. The possible outcomes aren't: a) worker makes $5/hr and b) worker gets makes $10/hr (the minimum wage). Sure, in some cases the employer might grumble but ultimately stump up the extra $5/hr, but it's also possible that the employer lets the worker worker go instead, automating his job or having his work shipped overseas instead.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gNodQGNoPDjztasbh/lies-damn-...

I think in THEN USA the minimum wage is moot as long as companies can pay people less than that in lieu of tips.

It's nit really "minimum" if companies can pay less legally.

> But why take away their freedom to do so?

Minimum wage laws don't do that. You're completely within your rights to volunteer your time for no compensation at all if you wish.

Works on my machine

This is generally why I'm in favor of a UBI. It would solve so many employment problems if an employee in a bad situation could up and leave without a near-guarantee that they lose access to their home.

I agree with this. Adding arbitrary limits and thresholds just causes strange effects elsewhere. If you remove the absolute need to accept whatever job is available then you have the ability to properly negotiate what salary is worth it to you.

I disagree. Other people in society should not have to work hard so they can provide for others who would like to quit their jobs, sit around and do nothing, and live off the labor of others. Because the person who quits their job because of UBI is still eating, and that food isn't harvesting itself and transporting itself to market.

If you want that and you aren't producing enough value to warrant it, why should someone else pay for it? Find some more valuable work to do, work harder

In the UK you'll get benefits to top up your wage anyway.

> you aren't producing enough value to warrant it

In industries where the availability of workers is high, the amount of value produced per worker does not particularly relate to the amount that that worker is paid.

If the worker produces more than enough value to their employer that that employer could pay them enough to live with dignity while also making a profit on that worker, then perhaps they ought be required to.

Someone has to collect the garbage, clean public restrooms, produce our food, etc.

We can't all be CEOs. Society depends on these "lowly" jobs. If the three jobs above ceased to exist we'd all be in trouble. They're all important enough to warrant a dignity wage.

In first grade we all learn that food, shelter, and water are the most basic living requirements. Add standard-of-living necessities such as internet, education, and healthcare access into the mix if you feel generous.

How can we afford NOT to provide basic requirements for these keystone jobs? Sure, they aren't "innovating" the newest phone or providing value to shareholders (gross), but in many ways they're far more important.

If you really want to own a Ferrari, or really anything extraneous, sure you should have to pull on those bootstraps. But not for food. Not for water. Not for shelter.

>We can't all be CEOs. Society depends on these "lowly" jobs. If the three jobs above ceased to exist we'd all be in trouble.

This feels like a variant of "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded". If there was some critical job that's going unfilled, the offering price will go up and up until someone bites, ensuring it will be filled.

I’d agree if we all lived in a vacuum.

Workers can’t hold out. They (we) need food and housing. Individuals can’t hold out hoping wages go up.

From a group standpoint, unions have been weakened to such a degree in the US (where I live) that it’s hard to put together an action.

Now if unions were strengthened and grew to a point that the minimum wage had no bearing on real life. Sure, get the government out. It’s probably better that way. But you can’t strike down group power and force people to eat crap.

This is some "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" bullshit.

There are many, many situations where it is simply not possible to just "find more valuable work to do" or to just "work harder" and have it result in more money.

That doesn't mean that enforcing a minimum wage is the correct way to fix the problem. It's not.

> the minimum amount required to live peacefully and with dignity.

The issue is that there is no such uniform amount.

If your spouse makes 85% as much as the two of you need to live with dignity, you don't need to make as much as they do and may prefer not to because the lower-paying job is less difficult or more satisfying. For someone else it could be 95%, or 99%, or 250% and the second job is pure supplemental income, so what's the minimum meant to be here?

The minimum wage doesn't account for costs. A job across the street from you means you don't need a car, don't have to pay for fuel or maintenance or transit tickets and don't have to spend hours in traffic (which you could have spent working and getting paid). For a long commute this difference in value can be more than the entire minimum wage.

It's possible for jobs to provide training, which is attractive for entry-level workers or anyone trying to change occupations or learn new skills, because school otherwise costs money. But if you're spending extra hours "at work" getting trained while the value of the training comes out of your paycheck, there isn't any sensible "minimum wage" for this. You could be receiving $50,000/year worth of training while "getting paid" only $5000/year and you're the one coming out ahead because you don't otherwise qualify for a job that pays $55,000/year. You might still be ahead if you were paying them $5000/year.

So how are you supposed to set a minimum wage if the "minimum amount required to live peacefully and with dignity" is different for everyone, and setting it below that threshold deprives people of valuable alternatives?

You don't have to work full time. Your spouse makes 85% of what you need? Cool, you can work 15% of the amount of time you otherwise would. And for the person getting the training, that still doesn't affect their cost of living. Training isn't cash in hand. I think it's perfectly reasonable to pick a model citizen and work from there. I'd personally target the living expenses for a single person, living in a studio or 1 bedroom apartment, with the expected average commute for the area, and who is generally healthy. People living outside that situation can choose to work more or less as needed and possible, and people significantly outside that, such as the disabled, or those with children, can qualify for further support.

> You don't have to work full time. Your spouse makes 85% of what you need? Cool, you can work 15% of the amount of time you otherwise would.

There aren't enough jobs with that number of hours because companies have per-employee overhead and will choose someone who can work full time over two part-time employees. So then you get stuck with the full time job you hate that pays more than you need instead of the full time job that you enjoy that pays exactly what you need.

Moreover, even if you could find a job working only three hours a day, you're still commuting two hours a day to get there when the lower-paying job was closer, so now you're still spending almost as much time and ending up with even less money because you don't get paid for commuting and you have to pay for transportation.

But you can't end up with less money since that's not enough, so now you have to work more hours. You need the full time job in order to pay for the transportation to get to it. Which means all you've done is add two hours of your own time commuting while trading a job you enjoyed for one you don't.

> And for the person getting the training, that still doesn't affect their cost of living. Training isn't cash in hand.

Schools don't pay cost of living for their students. If you don't have the money you're expected to do some other paid work to come up with it.

The employer offering the training could offer you more paid hours, but that's not going to result in exceeding a minimum wage when averaged in with the negative $/hour training time. Especially if the extra hours are counted as overtime even though they wouldn't be if the employer and the school were separate entities.

> I'd personally target the living expenses for a single person, living in a studio or 1 bedroom apartment, with the expected average commute for the area, and who is generally healthy.

Which is completely arbitrary, since that is neither the average person nor would you want it to be. In fact, people making minimum wage tend to have longer commutes, because they have a low skill level and you prohibited them from trading lower wages for a shorter commute.

It also doesn't make any sense. If you're anyone other than that person, you may not need as much (e.g. you have a roommate or live with parents), so why shouldn't you be able to take a job that you prefer for non-wage reasons over one that pays slightly more? Or on the other side, if this is regarded as necessary (i.e. we're not going to solve the problem in a way that would make this unnecessary, such as a UBI), you'll be screwing over anyone who doesn't qualify for your arbitrarily structured assistance programs. And the assistance programs are frequently poverty traps because overlapping means-tested assistance programs cause their recipients to be subject to excessive marginal tax rates -- sometimes exceeding 100% of their marginal income, not that 50+% is anything reasonable in the alternative.