Is it? Minimum wage is a pretty simple law, compared to the paperwork and bureaucracy of existing welfare programs. I suppose you could go with Universal Basic

Is it? Minimum wage is a pretty simple law, compared to the paperwork and bureaucracy of existing welfare programs. I suppose you could go with Universal Basic Income, but I'm not convinced society is actually ready for that one yet. How would such a program even work? If we say the Maintenance Wage is $15, is the government just paying the difference between that and the market rate? If so, it seems the ideal salaries to offer are $0 (let the government subsidize it) and $16+ (but you could just get two $0 workers, so I'd expect pay scales to really start at more like $30?) This seems like it rapidly descends into Bureaucracy or Communism