Before modification by Ghavrel at 27/06/2017 09:10:41 PM
As to your specific example, I had a friend who started flipping burgers at McDonald's for minimum wage when he was in high school. He busted his ass and climbed the ladder to shift lead, assistant manager, store manager, regional manager, and retired early as an owner of multiple stores.
So your solution to the minimum wage is for people to follow our friend's example and climb the ladder.
Given that management jobs always constitute a substantially smaller number of jobs than the entry-level work they're supervising, how exactly do you intend all of the McDonald's burger flippers to advance in their careers? It seems unlikely that they're all going to become regional managers. Or even store managers.
Before you say "well they can go to other professions," keep in mind that they will be competing with the people in entry-level positions in those other professions.
The claim that everyone can advance if they try hard is like getting a bunch of people at the base of a pyramid and telling them all of them can stand on the topmost block. No, they can't. Math is a bitch.