Sometimes it all comes down to word games. Are we in favor of a “minimum wage,” or opposed to a “throw-entry-level-workers-out-of-work” wage? Because they’re the same thing.

If you’re just starting out in the workplace, one thing you need is experience. So maybe you’re willing to work for free as an intern. Or maybe you’re willing to work for $4 an hour so that in six months you can work for $8 or $12 an hour.

But if it’s illegal to pay you that $4 an hour, what happens if an employer can’t afford to pay you $5 or whatever the minimum wage happens to be? You’re unemployed. And maybe for a lot longer than you would have spent working for just $4 an hour. A minimum wage thus hurts the most the very people who need to get a foot in the door.

Now we have the so-called “living wage,” which is like the minimum wage only more so, a cost which is now being imposed on Los Angeles hotel owners. Not even all hotels — for now, just those near the city’s international airport. Of course, backers of the mandatory $10.64 an hour hope to use this limited rollout as precedent to spread the “living wage” all over the place.

LA’s airport hotel owners complain they’re being discriminated against. True enough, they are. But although misery loves company, they really wouldn’t be helped if all employers everywhere were forced to cut costs by offering fewer jobs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.