| HN Mirror

The point I made was that workers can't opt out of it because that would be illegal. There are, I'm certainly, many who are starving that would otherwise be thrilled to earn $4 an hour, but they can't. There are also a myriad of scenarios wherein paying someone less than the minimum wage doesn't mean that they starve and die. The minimum wage prevents those earners from finding a place in the market. Even further, there are a myriad of people who are thriving while currently sell their work for less than minimum wage, but they simply disguise the tasks as 'firm fixed bids' or 'flat rate bids' against a projected contract.

I acknowledge that there are bad actors in the system, namely Wal-Mart, who I'm guessing would be happy to pay workers as little as they possibly could, regardless of the burdens it imposed on them (I say because I believe their union-busting activities were unethical, not because I in any way despise their pay practices as they currently exist), but for the most part, a free exchange helps small business compete against bigger business.

In summation, hamstringing employers and employees is unnecessary. It's a shame, because in the tech community, we've already seen the value of a less-regulated workforce with things like oDesk and such. Companies who just need a Wordpress site are free to hire from oDesk, and will likely receive bids in the sub-$50 range which, in a more traditional arrangement, would violate labor laws. Similarly, we've seen it illustrated that those bottom-end producers aren't necessarily cannibalizing sales from up-market producers, as they're able to better distinguish themselves through marketability, experience and references. The artificial pay barrier we've imposed prevents many of the existing low-skill earners from getting experience and/or transitioning into higher-skill earners.