Sorry... a $15 minimum wage is too high

[haele]

65. You also need a computer and some form of mobile phone to get a minimum wage job.

Most job applications are online, so they can be downloaded into a hiring app that looks for keywords and certain required fields (which now include requirements for mobile phone numbers, email addresses, listing of social media sites...) Most employers would prefer to deal with their employees via email or text.

A perspective employee also typically need a clean credit and criminal record, and some other way of differentiating yourself from the hundreds of other people who are looking for the same job. So some form of college, or a diploma rather than a GED, or a certification or current work experience, because the new employer certainly doesn't have time to train new employees for any amount of time anymore.

What is particularly annoying is that minimum wage jobs and around minimum wage jobs now include jobs that weren't minimum wage a decade prior...

Cashiers used to be a "work up to" above minimum wage job, while the minimum wage was stocker or bagger. I remember working as a part-time cashier/floor worker at a fabric store and making $1.25 more an hour than the floor workers who weren't allowed to ring up the customer in 1989. The position was considered a trusted position, because you handled money. That position is now considered minimum wage, and if there is a bump up in wage to be promoted to a trusted position, it's certainly not the equivalent of $3.00 more (due to inflation) as it was back in 1989.
A neighbor who just got her CVN license two years ago still makes just above minimum wage in CA - $10.25 an hour at a nursing home. A rent-mate in 1993 made $14 an hour working at a nursing home as a CVN one year after getting her license.

The importance of job positions have decreased, whether through supply and demand (excess of labor available to fill those positions driving down wages), or through a concerted effort to degrade the importance of those jobs as a menial position rather than a service position.
This is an insidious trend I've been railing against since the late 1990's, when I began noticing wages stagnate and more and more mid-level positions (especially in trusted or semi-skilled positions) sliding down to the "menial labor/unskilled labor" level of pay, benefits, and respect.
Funny thing - this trend has been observed since the term "Union Worker" became a dirty word.

Haele