[Dave_Rosenthal]

I tend to agree with this conventional Econ 101 wisdom, but your comment got me wondering if raising the minimum wage would have an effect of driving people to build skills and push harder. I.e. think of a minimum wage as the government saying to workers, ‘Hey, if you want to be part of this economy, you better be at least X productive.’

[cbsmith]

It can also drive businesses to develop models where people are more productive. Productivity isn't just a function of skills and how much people "push", but also how businesses operate.

[surement]

What about teenagers and young adults with no work experience? They are the age groups with the highest levels of unemployment.

https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm

In fact, very few people earn minimum wage past early adulthood. I don't remember where I got this figure but it was something like 93% of people over the age of 24 make higher than minimum wage. In any case, income is highly correlated with age until retirement ages.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/233184/median-household-...

The motivation to earn skills to make more money is there regardless of minimum wage laws.