I'm in the middle of a great article by Ben Powell on sweatshops (HT: Don Boudreaux). This passage describes the harsh reality of low wages very accurately:

Wages are low in the third world because worker productivity is low (upper bound) and workers' alternatives are lousy (lower bound). To get sustained improvements in overall compensation, policies must raise worker productivity and/or increase alternatives available to workers. Policies that try to raise compensation but fail to move these two bounds risk raising compensation above a worker's upper bound resulting in his losing his job and moving to a less-desirable alternative.

In this light, t is hard not to agree with Jagdish Bhagwati, who said that "requiring a minimum wage in an overpopulated, developing country, as is done in a developed country, may actually be morally wicked."