I actually wasn't advocating for paying bus drivers an "above market" wage, I was suggesting that given that there were open job listings (and there still are!) and that all of the people complaining that $50K/year was an absurdly largely amount weren't rushing out to apply for those plum jobs suggested that maybe $50K/year (with some seniority) wasn't actually an absurdly high salary for someone to drive a bus through the urban hellhole at all hours of the day. In other words, I was suggesting that the compensation package probably wasn't too far off what you'd need to hire competent people to do a dangerous and stressful job. Being a competent bus driver in Philly requires a pretty big skill set, including the ability to not lose your shit on a regular basis.
But could you find cheaper bus drivers? Maybe. There are lots of jobs where you could theoretically find a body to do the "job" at minimum wage, but who wouldn't, over time, really have minimum competency. A lot of these are jobs which basically need workers to give a shit about what they're doing, they don't have constant managerial oversight, high turnover is problematic, and where mistakes can be a big deal. Like, say, a bus driver.
In the 90s there was a wee scandal in Rhode Island when it was revealed that the airport security screeners (at the luggage x-ray machines and metal detectors) were making minimum wage. That was, what, $5.10 an hour then? Obviously they managed to hire bodies to basically perform those jobs. At some level those jobs aren't particularly hard, and don't require immense skills. But you can see the problem with hiring people who don't much give a shit (and at minimum wage who does) about those jobs. Yes you can find someone to pretend to stare at the x-ray screen as bags go by for minimum wage, but...
...and, yes, the rough economic concept is "efficiency wages"
