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The obvious answer to me is that those jobs should pay a living wage for the area that they're in. Minimum wage in the USA is atrocious compared to most of the rest of the west.

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not really true. Significant parts of Europe don't even have a minimum wages, in particular the ones American progressives keep referencing like Denmark, and instead rely on collective bargaining agreements. At the state level US minimum wage can be quite high (15$ in NY), the highest min wage in Europe is France, with 11€

But the market pays unskilled laborers $15 in the US (Amazon, Target, Walmart), which puts it ahead of all EU government minimums, right?

Also, those jobs do pay a lot more in the expensive cities. Remember the story of the San Francisco transit janitor who made $270k / year?

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-janitor-pay-2700...

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