The market for labour is a monopsony (the limited number of buyers relative to sellers make it a buyer's market). Just as suppressing price in a monopolistic market is unlikely to drive down supply and can actually increase overall sales, recent minimum wage increases have been found to have a net positive effect on employment.

> We present the first causal analysis of recent large minimum wage increases, focusing on 47 large U.S. counties that reached $15 or more by 2022q1. [...] We then find significant and larger positive employment effects, as the monopsony model predicts. We go on to document the presence of monopsony in the restau- rant industry. [...] The fast food industry’s monopsony power allowed it to accommodate large minimum wage increases and raise employment.

Source: https://irle.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Minimum...

I'm not sure what standards you're talking about, but if you can't afford a home where you live you should move to a cheaper area. If the decision is being homeless vs moving, you should move.

It’s a lose lose. If you remove the wage floor many people with “livable” wages now would have theirs cut, it’s a problem of adversarial incentives a la nash.

How about "if you are unwilling pay someone enough to cover most of their core expenses, you aren't allowed to hire them at all"? I like that phrasing better

Less than 1% of workers make minimum wage. There are effectively zero opportunities to increase employment by offering wages below the minimum. If someone cant land a job at minimum wage it is because the employers think they are a net negative.