your mistake is in believing that <i>all work</i> is worth enough to live on -- but it isn't.<p>There is a lot of trivial work to be done that isn't worth rent+food+utilities+... There are things I'd pay someone $5/hr to do but not 50% more than that.  It's a huge gap.<p>At one point in history, Luxembourg had the highest unemployment, largely due to the $10/hr minimum wage, which was the highest in the world at that time.