You sound like someone who has never worked a minimum wage job. None of the skills you learn in these low end jobs is ever going to help you do anything but work similar low end jobs. I put myself through three associates degrees cleaning cars for a rental company. You know what that taught me? How to clean a car interior in 5-15 minutes. That's not exactly the most marketable of skills.
Fortunately that wasn't particularly laborious, so I still had the energy to do school too. Many people are not as lucky, and these days often have to work 2 or more jobs to get by. Worse, the kind of schooling I took advantage of is increasingly turning from vocation-oriented education to cheap-university-transfer education.
> You sound like someone who has never worked a minimum wage job
Nah. He sounds like someone with class and privilege who's worked a minimum wage job.
See, a minimum wage job for someone who is a privileged youth-- is a good way to learn the last little bit of organization, focus, "eye on the ball", working with a supervisor, attention to detail skills-- that will serve them the rest of their life. It's a great skill building opportunity.
For someone who's been stuck in it 3 years--- well, it's exhausted all of its value in those respects by this point.
People who are scared of the minimum wage going up are often worried that it's going to squeeze out kids from getting these first work experiences. And it's a valid concern. But the people who spend their lives stuck in those jobs are invisible to them.
I personally favor shortening the work week because I think it will increase the compensation associated with low skill labor; provide additional incentives for employers to ramp people into higher skill positions; and leave room for kids in low skill jobs.
