- Many states have a higher minimum wage, so the BLS reports are annoying. They do strictly less-than-or-equal rather than also including “nearby” or even “minimum in state”, making the overall percentage fairly low. I’m guessing data for “What percentage of the labor force makes less than $15/hr” would be more helpful, but is too far from the current minimum wage to be a reasonable discussion.
- Anecdotally, informal labor is driven by workers without the right to work (whether due to immigration status or otherwise). So I don’t think it’s reasonable to suggest that people would suddenly end up below minimum wage; the more likely outcome is as others have suggested: companies will raise prices (keeping the job), invest in automation (removing the job), or both.