[hntrader]

This thinking leads to more poverty and less social mobility.

Factory workers in China get paid less than $5/hour, yet this so-called "exploitation" directly led to a large reduction in poverty[1]. If everyone had accepted your framing and refused to do manufacturing business with China on that basis, the consequence of that would be more poverty and human suffering.

If a person is being paid $4/hour and you come in and offer a $5/hour job, you are making their situation better and you are improving their life.

[1]https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/poverty-rate

[JulianTapales]

My point is that an hourly rate can be exploitative even if it is the highest in the area.

[hntrader]

I know, and my point is that's wrong.

A wage that just lifted someone out of poverty isn't exploitative by definition, unless we've mangled the definition of exploitation beyond recognition and we're trying to incentivize behavior with our language that literally creates more poverty.