Your question makes sense. It is more work for people who desperately need work.
The problem is that dollars have marginal utility. The first $X you make per month is your housing and your food. People who are not getting that livable minimum are at a huge disadvantage in negotiations. They will do almost anything to get that $X. This means they will accept low pay, poor conditions, awful hours - anything you can think of - to make it. This also represents a massive subsidy to businesses that have good economies of scale.
This kind of brinkmanship with total collapse has very personal consequences. If a parent can't do it for more than one or two days a year (if that), their kid(s) may become homeless or stuck in the foster system. You should care about that because society bears a large portion of the costs (the costs are high). That level of stress causes people to make mistakes, sometimes about things you care about.
The goal of labor protections is to ensure some minimum level of human decency and allow people time to improve their lot. Aside from the risks to us outlined above, the risk of a population that is too beset with surviving to pay attention or vote should be pretty obvious.
The problem is that dollars have marginal utility. The first $X you make per month is your housing and your food. People who are not getting that livable minimum are at a huge disadvantage in negotiations. They will do almost anything to get that $X. This means they will accept low pay, poor conditions, awful hours - anything you can think of - to make it. This also represents a massive subsidy to businesses that have good economies of scale.
This kind of brinkmanship with total collapse has very personal consequences. If a parent can't do it for more than one or two days a year (if that), their kid(s) may become homeless or stuck in the foster system. You should care about that because society bears a large portion of the costs (the costs are high). That level of stress causes people to make mistakes, sometimes about things you care about.
The goal of labor protections is to ensure some minimum level of human decency and allow people time to improve their lot. Aside from the risks to us outlined above, the risk of a population that is too beset with surviving to pay attention or vote should be pretty obvious.