The minimum wage is not what it pretends to be. Proponents say that it guarantees workers some minimum compensation level. It doesn't. A minimum wage law just makes it illegal to pay someone less than some amount for an hour of work. It does not require employers to hire anyone at all for the job. In effect it makes certain low skill jobs illegal and abolishes them. Employers typically either eliminate the task or continue doing it using some labor saving technique. People who do not at the moment have enough skill or ability to earn the legal minimum wage are prohibited from getting a job with which they could climb the ladder of success.
When I was a child 50 years ago gasoline was universally sold at service stations where someone put it into your car, washed the windshield, checked the oil and perhaps the tire air. These tasks were usually done by some young man doing his first paid job. It was a good start in working in the mechanical world. Elevators had operators which incidentally made them safe for women alone. Streets were swept clean. My grandmother hired a part time gardener and did not have a garage full of power tools. These tasks were done by people who were either just starting work or were somehow less able and could not do any more advanced tasks. My grandmother's gardener had an IQ of about 60, but he was able to do some useful work and feel some pride in that fact. The disabled supplemented their meager earnings with charity from family and friends. The public transportation system worked because there were people riding it to work.
Now, in contrast, we have self serve gas, automatic elevator controls, streets less well swept by expensive machines, time pressed people doing their own gardening, and less able people are confined to public welfare or sheltered workshops. We are in the process of demanding that people on welfare get a job while making many of the entry level jobs they could do illegal.
In an ideal world we would abolish minimum wage laws and let people earn whatever they can based on their skills and abilities. For the less able who cannot earn enough in a market economy to get by we should have a negative income tax to supplement their earnings. Only the completely disabled should live entirely on public and private charity. We need minimum income law instead of minimum wage law.
GGR