I was recently in a WalMart where they were advertising 9.00/hr jobs, and I was thinking that 36 years ago, I was making $4.35/hr in a job I had at a department store while in college (which at that time was above the minimum wage).
I think that the real problem is that those jobs were never meant to be a “career” where you could own a home and raise a family - they were meant to be supplementary. I worked with other students and married women who wanted a flexible job where they could pick up some extra income. In high school, many of my friends worked at fast food places. No actual “adult” would EVER work at those jobs. The real problem here is a lack of skilled adults and jobs for them. As usual, Democrats are “solving” the wrong problem, which, of course, causes MORE problems.
Some years back, after retirement, I took a beer-money job as a night-stocker at Wal-Mart. The crew was mostly young kids, a few women and a bunch of us old guys.
One night, I was talking with of the kids who was thinking of staying with W-M. I told him that the only people who should be working here were retired old fuds like me or kids working their way through college. Deer-in-headlights, but in a month or so he was gone - hopefully on to better things.