The price of a non existant minimum wage.

[CleanShavenJesus]

The average "minor wage" in Germany is at about 9.45 euros an hour (which is more than the legal minimum wage in alot of other European countries). Which is just enought to not depend on welfare, when you keep in mind that living standards are also higher than in alot of other European countries (depending on where you live (it would not be enought in Hamburg and Munich)).
It is actualy illegal to pay employees a wage on which they still have to depend on welfae benefits here - and you would be considered to be a parasite and the legal consequences would be pritty damning for your buisness and yourself. But I think there are exceptions for small buisnesses - not that they are allowed to keep employees on such a poor wage, I think they can apply for a low interest loan given by the goverment to pay proper wages, whilest the buisness can build itself up.

That's a nice model. The legal minimum wage in the United States is currently $7.25 (or 5.48 euros) an hour. And the highest wage an average worker for a big business can earn, that I can see, is $7.40 an hour at McDonald's.

You cannot live on this money. It is not possible. There are currently strikes on fast food joints to pay higher, but instead McDonald's insulted their workers with a "Spending Journal" to help their employees live on the wages they are given. This "spending journal" requires that the employee does not pay for any heating, and works a second job. It also assumes that your health insurance is only $20, among other ridiculous assumptions. It's pathetic. It was supposed to be evidence that a person can work on the minimum wage, but if anything, it showed that you can't.

Work is very limited in many parts of the US. When I was younger only kids worked at McDonald's, as summer jobs. That was the fast food work force. Now it's very common to see 30-year olds, 40-year olds, even 50-year olds taking your order at McDonald's. And these adults need to survive on what they have. and what they have isn't enough to survive.