Your aim is to punish those who you deem to not be doing anything beneficial to society.
that's not my aim at all.
my point is there will always be people to fill those "minimum wage entry level jobs", and that is fine...invest in resources and training to encourage more education and training instead of spending the money on simple wage increases...i am not advocating punishing people for taking entry level jobs, nor am i advocating people working such jobs be paid $3/hr.
my point is simply that we should foster an environment of learning, success and investment (personal) rather than simply paying more money for nothing...if you took 50 people at Wal-Mart, who currently get $10.75/hr right now, and raised minimum wage to $18/hr, you aren't really helping any one with that...the reality is, while those workers will now make more money, i'll guess that 10 will be let go...so now, instead of 50 people making $10.25/hr, you will have 40 making $18/hr and 10 unemployed...since the 40 remaining will be paid more money, the expectations on them will also be increased, and you may find that 10-15 will get tossed, and replaced with other workers who have more retail experience...in the end, many of the original workers may no longer have a job.
i think better access to opportunities is far more beneficial to both the individual and the nation as a whole...when the Ford plant closed down here a couple of years ago, almost 80% of the workforce didn't even have a high school diploma...while it was great those workers made good money all the years, now they find themselves unemployable, or if they can get a job, are working for $12/hr as that is what a "high school drop out" makes in simple entry level jobs today...it's pretty tough for a 50 year old high school drop out to start their career over again.