re: So you want 15$ an hour for working a register at McDonalds?

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and make a very comfortable living.

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If you're willing to work, you can do this more often than not here in the USA.

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Maybe they were meant for those people, but the reality today is that the average age of a minimum wage earner is around 30. So while they may not have intended to work there as a career, it has turned into one due to a weak job market coupled with their low skills/education. I'm not in favor of raising the minimum wage, nor do I think it's a viable solution, but to find a viable solution we have to face the reality that these jobs aren't being solely filled by high school and college kids.

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But only 1/4 of the benefit of a minimum wage increase to $10.10 would go to households with an income less than $20,000. A full 45% of the benefit of a minimum wage increase to $10.10 would go to households making over $40k per year. If you're trying to help the downtrodden, it's a horribly inefficient way of doing it.
LINK

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The other crazy option which you're missing is making yourself more valuable to an employer or potential employer.

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I'm not missing it, it's just irrelevant. If he makes himself more valuable and gets a better job (and somehow finds a way to eat for the year or two that will take), then someone else will just slide into the job he has now, and then that person will have to eat. How will that person eat?

If those registers are anything like the self check outs at Walmart, we're not really that much better off. Old people, dumb people, difficult people will jam up the lines and there will have to be employees hired to assist. So you're back to square one.

You avoided the question I posed (as does everyone who proposes a "living wage").

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So, your answer to the question of how the cashier at McDonalds should eat is that he/she should live off of parents or someone else until they get a better job? Seriously, that's your solution?

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You may want to read the link I posted in this thread. I mean, I know you don't want to. But it would broaden your vision.

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They work at McDonald's I'm sure they can eat

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Actually it is against company policy for employees to eat the food. They can get a limited discount on food, but they still pay for it.

Unless you are advocating employee theft as a solution.

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I'm not missing it, it's just irrelevant. If he makes himself more valuable and gets a better job (and somehow finds a way to eat for the year or two that will take), then someone else will just slide into the job he has now, and then that person will have to eat. How will that person eat?

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There are 168 hours in a week. Assuming they are full time at McDs that leaves 128 hours. Lets assume 6 hours of sleep per day. That leaves 86 hours. Time to get a second job if you cant eat.

I did it during the summer when I was in college. Worked 6am-2pm at a golf course and 3-11 at a grocery store.

Next thing is, these broke people who "cant eat" have cable/internet/cell phone and most likely buy alcohol and other non-essentials. Stop living the champagne life on a beer salary.

Exactly. While in college at UGA in the early 90s, I worked as a line cook at Longhorn 30+ hours a week. Mainly nights and weekends. I did that for 4 years. I started at $8.25 an hour and by my last year I was making $16.50 per hour. Next closest guy, except the full time kitchen manager, was making around $10 an hour. I did that by busting my arse and working circles around the lazy and ignorant employees around me. Expediting the cooking line on Friday and Saturday nights. Leading and coaching my co-workers in efficiency and eliminating wasted movements in a rush. Digging us out of the weeds by bouncing station to station and communication. Staying on the guys when it was time to close and clean the kitchen so we could all get out of there and doing the work of two people. I kept demanding a raise every 6 months. "No problem, we can give you .50." No, I require a dollar. "Okay...we can do that but don't tell anyone because we don't do dollar raises." By my 4th year, when I went from $15.50 to $16.50, I convinced my GM to consider me as two employees and to cut the staff my one as they were dead weight anyway. He initially said "we just don't pay that kind of wage at Longhorn for a kitchen employee. My Regional manager will go ape shite when he finds out. The highest paid Longhorn cook at the Buckhead store only makes $16.00 and he has been there since they opened the store ten years ago. Hell, that is asst. manager pay scale." I told him "We are friends so I will just talk bluntly. I really don't care what Wayne(RM) thinks. I doubt that he got to be RM by being dumb. He knows the value I bring to this store. I carry this kitchen on my damn back. Tell him, if he ever asks, that you can't afford to lose me and you will justify it by getting rid of the next sorry arse that habitually calls in sick and not hire a replacement. Half of the staff here is dead weight anyway." He wisely made the smart decision and gave me the raise I demanded. When I left in 96, I was the highest paid LH cook in the company. Heck, I was called in to other higher volume stores(Buckhead, Roswell, etc.) on weekend nights and paid $20.00 an hour when they were short handed. I would be scheduled at the Athens store and my GM would call and say that the RM had called and asked him to send me to another store that night. My GM hated when that happened because it would impact his night but he did it to placate the RM.

Point of all this, and to your post, is exactly what you said. Make yourself valuable. Distinguish yourself from everyone else. Take pride in everything your job requires you to do. Do your job and do more. Go the extra mile....everyday. After I earned my degree and decided to leave Athens to get on with my life, they (RM and GM) wanted me to become a manager. I told them no thanks...it is not for me. "But you worked so hard here, and you communicate so well, you have great leadership skills, etc.. This seems Taylor made for you." I appreciated that confirmation. I really did but explained to them that I never intended to make a career out of that job. I believe in being the best....first in class....at any endeavor. It is an issue of pride.

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This is why more jobs need to be created to replace the manufacturing jobs lost. That is the only way the middle class will survive.

If we keep shipping jobs overseas and making things cheaper then the purchasing power of the people losing those jobs diminish as well.
Corporations don't realize it yet, but maximizing profit at the cost of your customer base will eventually cause the market to collapse.

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No, that's the old way of thinking. It will not cause the market to collapse, it will cause it to move. If you're a company you go where the market is. America is not even close to being the only major market anymore.

The American worker needs to adapt with the market; asking the market to adjust to the worker is stupid, and just causes the market to go somewhere else. American heavy industry is alive and dominant in several sectors (oilfield tools is one). Chinese offshore rigs are outfitted with American equipment. Why? Because our manufacturing is superior and our costs aren't exorbitant, and they can communicate with American engineers quickly and easily due to email, VOIP, and cheap airfare.

I've seen an oil rig built by a Chinese shipyard, for a Mexican company, outfitted with equipment assembled in Estonia, Finland, America, and Canada, that was originally manufactured in 60 different places before being shipped to the assembly factory, all coordinated with American management. The world has changed with the Internet. We are competing with every other country and we aren't at the bottom or the top of the wage/cost scale. All import/export tariffs do today is hurt American commerce in the long run.

American workers have to adapt to this new marketplace, because it isn't going away. If American unskilled labor is twice the price of Indian, then the American worker needs to show twice the value. If that isn't possible, then you need to find a career where you CAN do so.