
For adult workers, wages are mostly set by the market. That is, employers and employees agree to a rate based on their available alternatives, with little in the way of government intervention. However, for workers with little skill and experience, a category in which most teenagers fall, it's minimum wage that sets the cost of labour. Since the cost of this labour is higher than what the market would set it at, demand for teenage workers is kept artificially low. (For a more detailed explanation of this phenomenon, see this article.)
So is the solution to this problem abolishing minimum wage? This will almost certainly increase the number of employed workers, but will also reduce wages for many. For a discussion on the effects of removing the minimum wage, see here.
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