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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

If nobody is allowed to offer him work below a particular rate and nobody is willing to pay him at or above that rate, then he's effectively forbidden from working.

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Or, if no company is willing to pay a living wage to accomplish a task, does it need to be done?

Perhaps not, or more likely it doesn't need to be done in the jurisdiction of the forced minimum.

For fully localized jobs that cannot move (ex: waiter) that means they probably won't exist at all and the business will close down.

Or will the prices just increase to account for the higher wage? Isn't that easier?

Companies will pay at most the value that a worker creates. It makes no sense to pay minimum wage, if the worker creates less value than that.

And what is the value created by labor? Let's split the discussion into service jobs and non-service jobs, as we all know most of these minimum wage positions are service jobs. So, what is the value of one hour of service labor? Whatever someone will pay for it. Which is set by a market of service providers all decreasing their prices to the lowest they can tolerate. Because if you can undercut a competitor, the free market says you will win the business. Which, for the people who make minimum wage, is how little a wage they will accept. Ok, what sets the floor for what people will tolerate to be paid? When looking at the minimum wage sector of the population, what is their bargaining power? What is the bargaining power of the employers? Is it a free market? What other options do the workers have? Is it a voluntary transaction if the alternative is starvation and homelessness?

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