A slave owner doesn't "offer a job." That is a straw man argument. Consent of two people to form a contract is vastly different than slavery. Stop being so emotionally stupid and dishonest. And fact is in a truely free market and even in our partiality free one; you could choose, as a low skilled worker, to accept a job at mcds for minimum wage OR accept a job with a landscape/construction company for considerably more. If you assume we live in a vacuum, then yes forcing a company to pay a minimum wage doesn't effect anything. However, we live in the real world where scarsity is real and cuts will have to be made or prices raised so in the aggregate the community is worse off. The best answer is to invest in yourself either by getting an education or job training of some sort( hvac techs are making high 5 figures to start!) and better yourself. Government has and will always suck at "fixing things".