It would be great if we all lived in the world of conservative economists.
Pretend that starting a company wasn't an option for you. I guarantee there is some minimum wage level that would have knocked out the bottom rung in your career ladder.
Before that, I was making 126% minimum wage at my first job (movie theater). So, I suppose if minimum wage had been higher I wouldn't have wasted three years of my life cleaning up used condoms and dirty diapers from the floor of a theater.
But it probably wouldn't have kept me from being offered the (mostly credit) 3-month development project at the school I was going to. And arguably, that set up my career more than anything.
It's a lot like the "theory" that someone fresh out of college becomes more valuable after a couple of years of experience. Or, at the very least, has demonstrated how she is better than the typical college grad.
Is hristov a counter-example to these theories? Has his/her actual or percieved value been completely constant over time, regardless of how s\he's spent that time?
If it has, why is it absurd to think that time spent working might have some effect on one's value as a worker? Or is it that teenagers are different?