[romwell]

>They offered a rate, people were capable of consenting to the terms while accounting for expenses

See, on party here has a lot more data on said expenses, and all the incentives in the world to be misleading about them.

The existing demand was not "true" under the reasonable assumption that nobody wants to work for less than minimum wage after expenses.

[kgc]

There are definitely people who are willing to work below minimum wage. It's actually quantifiable if you look at the workforce reduction after minimum wage hikes in locales.

[speedplane]

> There are definitely people who are willing to work below minimum wage.

Yes, and there are also people willing to work in unsafe conditions, work in illegal industries, and trade with the country's enemies. The "free market", as implemented almost anywhere, has never been synonymous with trading with whoever you want on whatever terms.

[romwell]

>It's actually quantifiable if you look at the workforce reduction after minimum wage hikes in locales.

People definitely are willing to work below minimum wage; that's exactly why we need minimum wage!

[learc83]

It's not that simple. No one can agree if a given minimum wage increase results in a workforce reduction, and if it does by how much. There is no consensus here, which probably means at the minimum wage increases we've seen, the effect is negligible.

[magicalhippo]

> No one can agree if a given minimum wage increase results in a workforce reduction, and if it does by how much.

It's certainly not a nice analytic function, but clearly the higher the minimum wage, the fewer jobs make economic sense.

If I could pay someone a couple of bucks a day to open and close my garage door, I could afford that. But the minimum wage is far beyond that, so I got an electric door opener instead.

[learc83]

There are 2nd order effects though. Higher minimum wage has a direct impact on the income velocity of money because it tends to move money towards lower income workers, who spend money faster. This effect can actually result in more jobs overall.

[magicalhippo]

If they buy more things, then surely it depends highly on where those things are produced though. Of course it'll mean a bit more jobs in the retail sector, but with most being online, won't the primary increase be at the production end?

If it allows more people to buy iPhones then most of the jobs created by that is made in China, which doesn't help local economy much.

[learc83]

Online sales are only projected to account for about 12% of retail in 2020, and retail is only a small percentage of the overall economy.

>If it allows more people to buy iPhones then most of the jobs created by that is made in China

Only a small part of the value of an iPhone is captured by China. Not much of it goes to the local economy either, but luxury electronics are also a small fraction of the economy.

Dining out, groceries, retail, housing, transportation, entertainment, travel, child care, home repair, cell phone repair, medical care etc... the local economy captures a large percentage of all of those.

[orangecat]

The existing demand was not "true" under the reasonable assumption that nobody wants to work for less than minimum wage after expenses.

"Want" is a complicated term in this context, but there are plenty of non-gig employees earning minimum wage or above, but less than minimum wage after subtracting expenses like commuting.

[gridlockd]

> The existing demand was not "true" under the reasonable assumption that nobody wants to work for less than minimum wage after expenses.

That's an unreasonable assumption, especially when that "minimum wage" is 17$.