In 1978, I traveled to Norway. That was before wheeled suitcases, a time when most luggage moved around American airports in carts pushed by "redcaps," porters, usually Black. One of the things the guidebooks pointed out about Norway back then was that I should be prepared to handle my own luggage, because carrying other people's bags was culturally beneath the Norwegian worker's dignity. They didn't have people doing low-paid menial jobs, because no one would DO menial jobs, and, presumably, no one would expect anyone to do a menial job.

The USA in 2021 is not Norway, now or then. But I believe a minimum wage for menial jobs will result in the loss of those jobs. We should be willing, perhaps happy, to say "good riddance" to those jobs, rather than lamenting their loss, but we should expect that people would rather carry their own bags, speaking metaphorically, than pay someone $15/hr. to carry them.

That's not to say that today's American workers have adequate bargaining power. I agree that they do not. But I would give them a UBI as their BATNA (Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement). Making people choose between UI and wages seems to me bad policy because of the cliff nature of the cost of taking work. Raising the minimum wage makes sense, too - it is essentially collective bargaining continued by other means - but only if the understood consequence is the abolition of jobs that CUSTOMERS will not pay that wage to have done for them.