"When you are desperate to the point your livelihood is on the line, you don't get to be picky with what is on offer." We both agree with this, but we come to

"When you are desperate to the point your livelihood is on the line, you don't get to be picky with what is on offer." We both agree with this, but we come to different conclusions :) My point is that minimum wage helps those that are already in a moderately good situation, or at least less desperate. Why? Because they managed to get a job for minimum wage. There are many others that can't do that, and a good slice of them can't do that exactly because of the enforce performance floor created by the minimum wage. I've had this illustrated to me rather vividly one evening when I was cleaning out an apartment. A homeless dude was going through the stuff that was thrown out and was sorting old kitchenware. And I mean really old, not in a good way. It was dark, and the monetary value of what he was getting was probably in very low single digits. And yet he was willing to do that. I've spent some hours pondering why is this guy sorting half broken plates in the dark instead of washing cars for 10x the income. That's when I realized minimum wage is evil. Not just "suboptimum" or "imperfect", but evil. Because it targets precisely those that are in the worst possible position and exiles them away from society. If you're not worth at least $X per hour for somebody, you're worthless. I disagree with that.