to me, the point isn't about whether or not someone aspires to something better than minimum wage. that falls apart once you address the fact that SOMEONE has to flip the burgers and scrub the toilets and stock the shelves and thread the screws. it's not like the entire minimum wage workforce can just wake up tomorrow and go get a better job. there are only so many "better jobs" and there is too much unskilled labor to be done in the meantime. the country would burn down overnight if that happened.
the alternative is to pay people better and force companies to make up the costs by charging consumers higher prices. if that happened, the next tier of workers becomes the new working poor because their spending abilities are now no better than last week's minimum wage workers because shit just got expensive. everyone goes down a notch and the minimum wage workers still can't afford a better quality of life. there's not much point to that plan.
another alternative is to raise taxes to fund social service programs like foodstamps and rent vouchers and whatnot. while that has the potential to be somewhat fair on paper, the reality is that it would be implemented shoddily and mismanaged to hell. i personally don't mind paying more in taxes if i feel like there's a good reason for it, but i can recall at least 6 scandals in the past 7 years in my state alone that happened because the people running the show are too stupid, proud, and pussy to keep proper tabs on the money. the most recent scandal involved over a thousand dead people collecting ebt benefits, people using multiple social security numbers, and carrying balances of several thousand dollars of cash benefits. the best part is that the "state auditor" makes a salary of 125k a year and the office itself has a budget of over 17 million. i don't agree with taking more of my money when they can't even manage what they already have.
but as for the minimum wage workers themselves, not all of them are too lazy to find something better. sometimes something better isn't there, and even if it was, there's still crappy jobs that still need to be done. not everyone had parents who pushed them in school, not everyone went to college and got a degree, not everyone can decide to go to college on a whim to better their situation as an adult, and not everyone gets the life they planned on. someone needs to do that work, and i don't see any point in mocking the people who end up with shit jobs. it's not funny that people working 70 hours a week at ANY types of jobs can't afford to do anything but work, eat ramen, and sleep.
