They don't, they can't, I've been saying that for years, more than 75% of those working for minimum wage are adults and minimum wage currently has the lowest spending power in history. In the richest country in the world, the poorest worker should make a living wage.
The great crisis of capitalism is that its drive for higher returns leads it to lower wages - which results in the growing inability for workers to buy what they produce.
There are two common solutions to this demand problem.
The Chinese model: create an export economy. Make it so workers don't have to buy what they produce because the goods are being made for export. (This is the China of 30 years ago, before they started to slowly build a more impressive domestic economy) Under the old Chinese model your workers live in hovels and cannot consume or improve their living conditions. This type of model usually requires a repressive government, one that is both physically and ideologically repressive, e.g., put people in prison, subject them to strong law enforcement, and limit their google searches, etc.
The Reagan Model: Expand freedom through credit. This is what Reagan had to do when he dismantled unions and created the conditions for cheap labor (higher returns) in the USA. He (more specifically his era in history) replaced high wages, high benefits and entitlements with credit vehicles. This is why US Household debt exploded starting in the 80s.
The downside is of the Chinese model is obvious. You need to repress your workers.
The downside of the Reagan model is also obvious. The credit eventually runs out and you end up with a generation of insolvent, debt ridden consumers - and you have a decade or more of weak demand and no economic growth, and, as a result, a steady loss of jobs.
Wealth inequality is morally fine with me - I truly don't give a shit how little or how much someone makes. What I care about is an economy that does not pay its workers enough to consume (either through wages/benefits or "after market" policies that keep the middle class consumer solvent) Once capitalism, through its drive for cheap labor, renders the middle class consumer insolvent, you either go down the dark road of prison or credit: you have to put the superfluous in jail or give them a means to survive through the expansion of credit markets. America started with the credit model, but it is - out of necessity - easing into the prison model. This is what the Reagan War on Drugs was meant to do: boost the repressive power of the state in the face of unwinding social programs. When you start paying workers less money, you need more prison beds, more Rush Limbaugh (propoganda) and more religion ("hope").
By reducing labor costs so that a narrow group of capitalists could realize higher returns, the middle class consumer was nailed to a Cross of Master Card, Visa, and Sub-prime. Now the game is up; 30 years of Reaganomics (a.k.a. austerity for the working consumer) has lead to a crisis in demand that cannot be solved by traditional Keynesian methods. Interest rates are near zero, taxes are at their lowest rates ever, and no stimulus will stick on our dying cluster **** of zombie banks and bankrupt consumers.
Welcome to the structural flaw of capitalism. Lower wages increases the need for credit which increases the likelihood of an economic meltdown, which meltdown allows the powerful to prey on the fear and desperation of the stupid - hence talk radio.
God help us.
