John lives near me and is unemployed. My neighbors and I all hate cutting our grass. We'd pay $5 an hour to have someone else do it, and John would prefer $5 an hour to $0.
However, it's illegal for us to hire him at that wage. So we cut our own grass and he has no job. There's one less spender.
There's also a bunch of hours we could have spent doing something more productive. For instance, I could have worked on my open source project instead of cutting my grass. But I'm producing $5 of economic value that hour instead of $50.
So why is "you can't sell labor for less than $X" any more reasonable as a law than "you can't sell oranges for less than $X a pound" would be? Both lead to waste.
Sell the mowing job as a unit. I will pay you $X to mow lawn, you have one day to complete the task. You separate the speed in which the labor works from the value of the job. In most cases this leads the worker to complete as fast as possible for their own benefit, but does not harm you if the worker decides to take their time.
Really?
John lives near me and is unemployed. My neighbors and I all hate cutting our grass. We'd pay $5 an hour to have someone else do it, and John would prefer $5 an hour to $0.
However, it's illegal for us to hire him at that wage. So we cut our own grass and he has no job. There's one less spender.
There's also a bunch of hours we could have spent doing something more productive. For instance, I could have worked on my open source project instead of cutting my grass. But I'm producing $5 of economic value that hour instead of $50.
So why is "you can't sell labor for less than $X" any more reasonable as a law than "you can't sell oranges for less than $X a pound" would be? Both lead to waste.