Minimum wage is significantly above subsistence wage,
You want the average wage, not the minimum wage. Germans are worthwhile people, even though their minimum wage is zero. Similarly, raising or lowering the minimum wage (holding employment and output fixed) should not affect our estimation of people’s value-add.
What you want is the market wage for untrained labor. Taking the value of trained labor and subtracting the cost of the training should also work and get the same answer.
Minimum wage is legal thing, and doesn’t show anything, unless the politicians are consistently setting it just below the market rate for untrained labor. I’m pretty sure they are, but I’d still say you are correct. I shouldn’t have said “minimum wage”.
You want the average wage, not the minimum wage. Germans are worthwhile people, even though their minimum wage is zero. Similarly, raising or lowering the minimum wage (holding employment and output fixed) should not affect our estimation of people’s value-add.
What you want is the market wage for untrained labor. Taking the value of trained labor and subtracting the cost of the training should also work and get the same answer.
Minimum wage is legal thing, and doesn’t show anything, unless the politicians are consistently setting it just below the market rate for untrained labor. I’m pretty sure they are, but I’d still say you are correct. I shouldn’t have said “minimum wage”.