Federal minimum wage is higher than that. I'm sure ether is some kind of job that can be created that pays more than $1.25 in order to try and pay their share.

Prisoners are not subject to minimum wage laws and are routinely paid wages far below it. In fact, the average wage for prisoners seems to much lower than my generous $1.25 an hour. But then, im a benevolent-ish overlord.

"They earn, on average, between 13 cents and 52 cents per hour nationwide. " https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...

It's in the tax payers interest that prisoners make as much money as possible, while not threatening the rest of society. My point of bringing up minimum wage is that it is a reference point for the value of human labor that prisoners are competiting against others with.

It's a nice idea. Unfortunately literally nothing about the modern prison system works in the taxpayers interest.