[jlokier]

I don't know about other countries, but in the UK the approach is to set the minimum wage significantly lower for teenagers.

Which sucks if you're an adult making a living who happens to be young, but that's what we do.

There's also a dirty hack: We call some young people "apprentices"(1), which sometimes means the same job as before and not having to pay the minimum wage, with a veneer of marketing. See also "unpaid interns".

(1) I don't want to disparage proper apprenticeships, which from reports can be excellent, e.g. at engineering firms like Rolls-Royce.

[leetcrew]

the obvious problem here is that if you have a different minimum wage for teenagers, they will be preferred over adult candidates.

by the way, we do have special rules in the US for what kind of work you are allowed to give to interns. in general you are not allowed to give work to interns that would otherwise be performed by a full employee. this is intended to prevent adult employees being put out of a job by low pay interns. unfortunately, I don't think most minimum wage employers are interested in dealing with these complicated rules for interns.