# What would be the lowest-wage job in the US if there were no minimum wage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 18, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612 "2013-10-18T22:39:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/41 "2013-10-20T23:34:15Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I think a “warm body” job like that would apply. That’s similar to what I was thinking; a job with almost nonexistent mental and physical demands. Something like a Walmart greeter, the people at Fry’s that direct shoppers to open registers, people at county fairs who point out open parking spaces on grass lots, and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/42 "2013-10-20T23:36:11Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Pay for the chance for someone with no skills and no experience outside of the classroom to get their food in the door in a lucrative long-term career? > > The root of the whole unpaid internship issue is that there isn’t a hard line between “education” and “employment”. How much should be on the company to bear the costs of finding and training people and how much should be on individuals to develop their own skills. I had a friend that took the Disney internship, which you worked for Walt Disney World for a semester in exchange for some college credits. Essentially what happened is that they paid you, but less than Florida minimum wage. You had to pay them back for the apartment they put you up in, but they would give you a ride to and from the park. So essentially she went for a Botany internship, but spent most of her time changing out trash can liners and owed them money at the end of it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/43 "2013-10-21T00:54:59Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > That’s similar to what I was thinking; a job with almost nonexistent mental and physical demands. Something like a Walmart greeter The first time I came across one, I genuinely didn’t realize he was a Wal-Mart greeter; I just thought he was an old panhandler who’d been drinking. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/44 "2013-10-21T01:10:37Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > The first time I came across one, I genuinely didn’t realize he was a Wal-Mart greeter; I just thought he was an old panhandler who’d been drinking. Couldn’t he have been both, like the late Earl Warren? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/45 "2013-10-21T01:14:55Z")
Speaking of “warm body” jobs: I can’t figure out why I can’t get an entry-level security job. Surely it doesn’t take that much qualification to be the guy who babysits a warehouse on third shift, making the rounds once an hour and otherwise sitting at a desk reading. ---
**Author:** ![knel3030](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecae2f/32.png) [@knel3030](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/knel3030)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/46 "2013-10-21T06:08:15Z")
Jail chain gangs - slave labor. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/47 "2013-10-21T14:48:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think the Home Depot Day Labor Wage is an interesting data point, but I’m not sure it’s even a good 1st order estimate of what the lowest wage would be if there were no MW. The fact is, those people operate in an environment where prices for goods and services are affected by the prevailing MW. Without a MW, it’s likely that many prices would drop, and the lowest amount a person would work for would drop, as well. I don’t know about that. A lot of them send most of that money home. You can live very cheaply if you don’t mind living with a dozen other guys. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/48 "2013-10-21T15:14:38Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > For example my wife worked a double yesterday (11 hours) and came home with 50 dollars cash. Thats 4.55 an hour. That’s actually $6.68/hr by the government’s reckoning because you’re not considering the $2.13/hr in there. Still, the employer should be on the hook for the balance - another $6.27 by my reckoning, in order to boost your wife up to minimum wage ($7.25). ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/49 "2013-10-21T15:16:21Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > it doesn’t take that much qualification to be the guy who babysits a warehouse on third shift, making the rounds once an hour and otherwise sitting at a desk reading. I have found that there is a lot of competition from other lazy people for these sorts of jobs. ---
**Author:** ![cornopean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cornopean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornopean)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/50 "2013-10-21T23:47:30Z")
There would certainly be alot less unemployment. Especially youth unemployment. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/51 "2013-10-22T00:32:29Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > There would certainly be alot less unemployment. Especially youth unemployment. You’re assuming that if the minimum wage got lowered, employers would hire more people, rather than pay the ones they’ve got less and pocket the difference. That’s charming! ---
**Author:** ![cornopean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cornopean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornopean)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/52 "2013-10-22T00:36:06Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > You’re assuming that if the minimum wage got lowered, employers would hire more people, rather than pay the ones they’ve got less and pocket the difference. That’s charming! It’s simple economics. If an employer can make a reasonable ROI on a new hire, then he will do it. no? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/53 "2013-10-22T00:47:16Z")
If the ones they have now are getting the job done, why should they hire more? Any employer who’s currently paying minimum wage is doing that because it’s the least amount of money they can get away with paying people. Nobody took a look at the books & their profit margin and made their best guess as to what they could pay people and then found, to their shock, that that number was the same as minimum wage. If the minimum wage goes down, so will the wage of every single person on minimum wage. ---
**Author:** ![cornopean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cornopean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornopean)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/54 "2013-10-22T01:37:27Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > If the ones they have now are getting the job done, why should they hire more? Any employer who’s currently paying minimum wage is doing that because it’s the least amount of money they can get away with paying people. Nobody took a look at the books & their profit margin and made their best guess as to what they could pay people and then found, to their shock, that that number was the same as minimum wage. > > If the minimum wage goes down, so will the wage of every single person on minimum wage. Do you deny that a high minimum wage raises the unemployment level of those people at the bottom of the pay scale? ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/55 "2013-10-22T01:56:05Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Assistant Crack Whore. Damnit! ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/56 "2013-10-22T02:03:18Z")
I imagine that at some point people would decide being a homeless beggar would be a better “job” than working for a pittance. In the Old South, vagrancy laws were necessary to forcibly employ people who otherwise would have refused to perform backbreaking manual labor for pauper wages. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/57 "2013-10-22T02:24:00Z")
If the main driver for wages is what the market will bear, I wonder how low you could go for “cool” or “fun” jobs. Like for teenagers working in a video game store or amusement park? I bet you could conceivably go below $5/hr not having to work at McDonalds or Walmart. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/58 "2013-10-22T20:01:12Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > There are already people at Goodwill [with mental disabilities working for as low as 22 cents an hour](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/24/2201101/goodwill-pays-cents-per-hour/), so we’d have to exclude those to get at what I think the OP is meaning, how low would some other wages go with the elimination of minimum wage. There is typically a standard blurb on the huge and wordy US “labor law” disclosures that are typically posted in break rooms that says that employers are allowed to pay workers “with disabilities” less than minimum wage “under special certificates issued by the Department of Labor”. I’ve understood this to really refer to “sheltered workshops” and those sorts of opportunities, not “people with disabilities” in general, as if a boss could confront an employee and say, “I see you have diabetes/use a wheelchair/have a speech impediment/have very easily sunburned skin/need an extra-large computer screen due to low vision/whatever. You’re being dropped to $3.50 an hour because you are disabled.” The minimum wage exception was only for people with profound disabilities, i.e. “retarded” people etc. who stare into space for an hour and then do some trivial work and it’s meaningless to pay them a real hourly wage because of that. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/59 "2013-10-22T20:04:53Z")
Are there any jurisdictions around the world that do not have a minimum wage? What kinds of trends do we see there? Are any of these “no minimum wage” countries in the First World where you would expect similar working and living conditions to those in the US? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612/60 "2013-10-22T21:06:46Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Are there any jurisdictions around the world that do not have a minimum wage? What kinds of trends do we see there? Are any of these “no minimum wage” countries in the First World where you would expect similar working and living conditions to those in the US? Several European countries, Germany has I believe already been mentioned in this thread. But Germany has a system of trade unions that effectively create a floor for wages through negotiations so a government mandated minimum wage is not as big a deal there as it is here. Although some on the left are pushing for one in Germany (that is apparently one of the issues of contention between Merkel and the SDP, who are currently trying to form a coalition.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-lowest-wage-job-in-the-us-if-there-were-no-minimum-wage/671612.md?page=4)