There's no such thing as "real" minimum wage since the factors that result in having minimum wage must be included (taxes/regulations/cost of living etc). Just

There's no such thing as "real" minimum wage since the factors that result in having minimum wage must be included (taxes/regulations/cost of living etc). Just as looking at the wages of illegal immigrants doesn't represent the "real" economy, the gig economy, whose companies largely operate under artificial, VC inflated markets, and depend on heterogenous labor markets,can't gage "real" wages. If you're wondering how low a wage can be and still retain employees, the answer is pretty close to zero. Even baring the no/very low wages that predominated human history, in the 20th century mining companies were able to avoid paying their employees money at all and instead provided tokens serviceable in stores the mining companies owned. The goods in those stores were sold with inflated prices, essential making the cost of labor close to zero. The case against minimum wage is largely based off of highly isolated factors typically favoring shareholder economics.