Do you seriously expect people getting paid minimum wage to perform anything beyond minimal work? You get what you pay for.

Reliable, thoughtful, competent people are not hard to find.
However, they don't work for minimum wage.
You get what you pay for.

Yes, if they ever want to be paid more than minimum wage. It's called "showing initiative" and if you do it, someone will generally take notice and make sure your pay reflects your effort.

The robot burger flipper is 100% the same thing as any new tool.

The chain saw is a classic example. Before the chain saw lots of men were required to harvest a tree. Even the two man saw required two hard working guys with experience to cut down a tree. Along comes a chain saw, and one lone guy can cut down more trees than a large team of men. A large team of men with chainsaws can harvest an entire forest in short order. Higher production, less labor cost, more profit.

No different than a burger flipper robot.

Nope. We pay engineering interns minimum wage because they want the experience.

We also pay our entry level folks minimum wage. The good ones rise quickly because they see the opportunity.

I was referencing my friends experience with owning five McDonalds. The profit margin isn’t what you think. The right mix of folks are hard to find...it is by far his biggest headache.

You have your opinion I have mine.

that's BS IMO.

you gotta start somewhere and PROVE you're reliable, thoughtful and competent. And actually put some time in, not just 'hey i did two weeks on fryer when do i get to be manager?'.

people who are only reliable, thoughtful and competent when they like the pay and job description are not truly reliable, thoughtful and competent.

pay can be more than current $$ rate - see seahawk's post

I always did. It is not so much getting what you pay for, as getting the employee you hired.
They are rare as hen's teeth. It is not that they don't work for minimum wage, they don't work for minimum wage for long

You are entitled to your opinion. I find my personal experience does not jibe with your opinion.

Honest question, I used to review offer letters for engineering interns at Microsoft just about 20yrs ago. At the time undergrad engineers were being paid in the high 5 figures, mba interns were being paid in the low 6 figures. How do you get the best engineering talent when so many places will pay college interns so much money? To top it off they bring in 1 to 2k interns a year.

In my experience, same job description, one starting at $15/hour and the other at $20/hour, you get a significantly better applicant pool with the latter. By better I mean: more intelligent, educated, cultured/has class and 10 other descriptors of an all around good prospective employee that you WANT to hire.

Have done this many times. Always the same response quality result.

Just a hypothesis but I think if those employers paying minimum wage are stressed out by their employees, they would (probably) be more profitable and happier, starting new, better quality employees at a higher wage over time. Even if you broke even or were slightly less profitable, stress level would be way down with good employees that last (and therefore save money, training is a B). Personally, I like the employees I have and only want to pay them more and always tell them and support them in how to do it. I can't even imagine having employees that I didn't like or disappointed me.

Do you seriously expect people to change their ways when given unlimited free money?
(examples: Wall Street, teacher's unions, NFL players)

Pouring money into a problem only enhances it.

Like a magnifying glass.

Look at lottery winners: Most end up broke, dead, and/or in jail.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8549827/Winner-10M-lottery-prize-2017-charged-murder.html

If you lose employees it is more likely they leave you due to non meaningful/boring work, bad work conditions, or poor business leadership, any due to payl

Do a search on "is.money a motivator ".

Also,lack of advancement opportunity.

And lousy bosses.

It is when you are down far enough that you can’t cover all your bills on what you make. I suspect a few have forgotten what that was like.

I didn't say in all cases.

A non skilled laborer will go from one low paying job to the next low paying job unless they up their worth by acquiring new skills of value.

It comes down to choices and personal responsibility, if you are only making minimum wage, you should not be taking on debt you cannot cover..
When I started working, minimum wage was $3.35 an hour, I worked hard and made myself worth more to my employer, I didn't go out and buy a new car, no cable tv, or any of the other things friends we putting themselves in debt for.
We all have choices, it is those choices that make us. I only made MW for a very short time.

First of all, we pay our employees well and have nearly zero turnover with our full time folks since our insurance and benefit packages are also excellent. In manufacturing and design, turnover is very hard on smaller companies.

We team with a few universities in NC one in South Carolina and one in Virginia. Both companies (one I am the second largest share holder, the other part owner) are involved in the aerospace industry for design, manufacture and assembly of air vehicles, mostly unmanned air systems. The company in NC specialized in advanced composites and assembly. The firm in VA is software oriented for design and flight test of unique air vehicles, circuit cards, auto pilots and flight control software. We sub out most manufacturing and avionics integration.

We team with a lot of other firms in their specialty areas.

We also team with universities for specific projects, like advanced composite manufacture of the universities designs. They send their students here and we help them build their dreams.

Lastly, we have a mix of government contracts and commercial contracts which influence how much we are allowed to pay (we negotiate salary rates per the FAR) to remain competitive on our bids.

So, to the university interns.

We developed an intern program with the department heads at each university. What the professors like is that we make the post freshman year aerospace engineers work the composite line, learn how to do composite lay-ups, make tooling, operate the line machinery with assistance.

They learn the difference between what looks great in a CAD model and what can actually be made. There is a difference. That is a minimum wage job and we have more applicants than slots.

Same with the software engineering folks and other engineering disciples not aerospace specific.. Post freshman year is truly a learn how the real world works, fly-fix-fly, etc. Again, more folks want in than we can afford.

After the post freshman year interns we use those who did well and seek other more experiences interns; their wages depend on what is allowable on government contracts for specific categories of engineer and experience level. We can't pay more than that rate per the contract, which specifies that in our pricing matrix. We get audited.

On the commercial contracts we have to stay competitive price-wise so our rate structure varies for each commercial contract. For instance, we build composite parts for aerospace firms in California and our rates for them are much greater than providing parts for aerospace firms in say, Alabama (Alabama is amazing - google SES-i). We try our best to leven wages across the work force.

We plug the interns in and pay them after their initial summer what their talent allows and they know that.

That is how it works. The feedback is always extremely positive and refreshing.

A few other things. We include the interns in everything. I have been in DoD acquisition for over thirty years and managed huge programs successfully. I have also done well since retirement.

Yesterday was our Risk Management Board for a DoD program called Watchman. We included all the interns, some working remote. I run the risk boards for all our projects (we just closed on a really wild project Thursday - a UAS that swims in water then transitions to flight) and make sure they go no more than a hour. I solicit their opinions, make sure they are engaged and meet the actions assigned them.

Same with the other owners of the two companies, both stone-cold experts in their engineering disciplines.

The kids love it.

Enough from me. Unmanned air vehicles are so attractive to young engineers I am sure we could pay them less and treat them poorly and still have a pool of applicants. We use our intern program to see who is worth bringing back. Not everybody gets it.

I can't stress enough the importance of Seahawk"s point about design theory and what works in the real world. In my opinion, you shouldn't design anything you don't have experience building and using.

Many bad designs come from people that have never built anything themselves, ever. Seen it more times than I can count. Thus, I used to take the designs given to me on paper as a good starting point.

Back to the original topic, minimum wage jobs help build your work ethic. You either grind out the hours and figure it all out, or you flail away at life never succeeding and wondering why you aren't paid your due.