> You claim that those low-efficiency jobs would still have workers if we were allowed to pay them a low enough price.
I think you misunderstood "If you could pay someone $4/hour..." It's not a statement about minimum wage or anything like that; GP isn't claiming that there's a potential market of $4/hr labor that would exist without regulation. Instead I interpreted the sentence as "Consumers value certain tasks at e.g. $4/hr but due to the Baumol effect nobody is willing to work for that amount."
But why can you not afford to live on $4/hr? Or, why is everything so much more expensive than it used to be? These questions may have answers or they may have broken assumptions, but you did not even attempt to address the point at issue.
I think you misunderstood "If you could pay someone $4/hour..." It's not a statement about minimum wage or anything like that; GP isn't claiming that there's a potential market of $4/hr labor that would exist without regulation. Instead I interpreted the sentence as "Consumers value certain tasks at e.g. $4/hr but due to the Baumol effect nobody is willing to work for that amount."