We don’t allow for slums like what you see in Brazil or India, so there is a high floor where wages essentially are less productive than not working.

So when you push the value of labor to a leave where people cannot afford to live, folks in the US either end up on social services, social security disability, or are incarcerated.

Whenever there are changes to minimum wage, the parade of chamber of commerce types bemoan the horrors that will befall them. Yet somehow burgers get flipped and shelves get stocked.