How important is the minimum wage safe net?

I think that minimum wage should be introduced when the economy has a relatively low unemployment rate, that helps to improve the living standards of the working members of the society and narrow the domestic wealth gap. The set up of a minimum wage level may reduce the employment rate but it increases the payment of the employed population and encourages more people to join the labour market and increases the competition in the market which can improve the productivity of the economy. However, in some cases, the set up of any form of minimum wage could damage the welfare of the whole population.

For some kinds of jobs, there is no need for setting up a minimum wage level as the payments of the jobs are already high enough to their high entry requirements. Other traditionally low paid jobs are believe to need the government to set up a minimum wage and improve the treatment of these workers. However, when there is a big unemployed population. The minimum wage increases the cost of labour of the firms, which are usually producing lower value added products. Then instead of employing more workers, they may reduce their employee numbers or even considering to move their firms to countries which have lower cost of labour if possible, then the unemployment rate may increase further.

Therefore, I believe when the government is setting up the minimum wage level for the labour market, the minimum wage level should not be set as a fixed number, it should be a function that involves the consideration of the economic growth as well as the current employment rate. Just as what many central banks, when the inflation is high, they lowers base rates, when the inflation is low, they increases base rates; governments should do the same when setting up their minimum wage levels for their markets.