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Why might this be? Why might employment stay the same or even increase when the state legislates a minimum wage, theoretically raising the price of the lowest-cost labor?

We might consider that the statutory minimum wage is not an artificial floor, but is already actually *lower* than it would otherwise be.

Let’s take a look at Denmark. In Denmark, there is no statutory minimum wage. Despite this, Danish workers earn no less than the effective minimum wage of $16-18 per hour. This is much higher than the statutory minimum wage in the US of $7.25. Capitalist ideologues promised me this was impossible—in the absence of a statutory wage floor, there would be workers employed at literally every wage, including as little as $0.01.

And yet, there it is.

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