[maxlybbert]

> If the purpose of a minimum wage is not to guarantee a person a minimum standard of living, then what is the point?

In the US, minimum wage is defined as “the least you can pay anybody for any reason” with an exception for people who receive tips. As I understand it, some countries allow some people to make less than minimum wage.

I’m not entirely sure what the current point of the minimum wage is. The original idea was that it didn’t apply to everybody and was meant to make businesses less likely to hire people who were covered.

The minimum wage is not, and never has been, defined as “what an average worker should get for average effort.”

I agree that the average worker should have enough to live on, but I don’t see any connection between that and the minimum wage. People here are complaining about using “edge cases” to keep the minimum wage low, but by definition (“minimum”), the minimum wage is an edge case.