“what the prevailing minimum wage would be without 40 million illegals. Wages have been stagnant since **1974**”
Agreed-
The real Minimum Wage is zero - Horseshiiite -
Nobody works for Zero - Slaves would cost you more than “Zero”. The only zero wage labor would be your own under-age family members.
If your “business” can only survive on paying high school kids $10 an hour, better get another business. Not many kids these days, and they sure as shiite won’t work for $10 an hour when they can make 10 times that with an Ebay site, a YouTube Channel, or any of the other Skill/Talent/Creative online work setups.
FWIW - More fighting-age Illegal Men crossed the border than US babies were born.
If your “business” can only survive on paying high school kids $10 an hour, better get another business
On its face that seems to be a ridiculous statement. The high school kid making $10 is the same as the retiree making $10, forced back to work because inflation is eating them alive.
Artificial wages like 15/hr for a burger flipper do nothing except fuel inflation.
Jobs will disappear and businesses will founder. Already, fast food places are seeing a decline because their offerings have reached a breaking point of affordability. $16 for a big mac meal? Really? Double from 5 years ago [or so]?
Partly fueled by higher wages and partly by inflated food prices[which are partly inflated by their higher labor costs].
These new “minimum” wages are creating a floor of unsustainability. You are not going to roll them back and poor folks will find they are just as poor as before.