To put things in perspective a little, my younger brother works as an inventory clerk for a company that makes custom industrial fasteners in the Midwest, US, a

To put things in perspective a little, my younger brother works as an inventory clerk for a company that makes custom industrial fasteners in the Midwest, US, and the working conditions you describe are actually better than his working conditions -- though I wholeheartedly agree that both of you have unfortunate working conditions and more should be done to improve the situation. If your situation is so extreme as to involve threats of violence, then it is non-negotiable that you need to remove yourself from it, even if it means facing grave and dire financial hardship. The psychological damage of an employer threatening you is worse than the damage of financial ruin or uncertainty. Also, on one hand you are claiming that minimum wage laws are beneficial, but then you're also saying that the political favoritism of your country allows those laws to be basically ignored (as in your case) with no consequence. To me, your comment is much more about ensuring legitimacy of government and enforcement of laws overall, and is very much unrelated to minimum wage at this point. Only after the enforcement of those laws is legitimized can you then begin to ask questions about what is the actual human effect of the law. Finally, I'd like to point out that I already said this type of reasoning (the argument that minimum wage denies opportunity to those who would agree to work for less) is overstated. I understand the economic rationale in the ideal case, and I was explaining that case just to clarify for the OP that I commented on ... not positing it as a robust defense or anything. Here's my other comment if interested: < https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11424743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11424743 >.