Strike!

Strikes have been useful tools, in the past, to hold employers' feet to the fire and ensure a safe work environment or higher wages (since the advent of organized unions, it's usually money).  Part of the reason they were effective was that it tended to be skilled laborers (coal miners) or even highly trained professionals (pilots) who were necessary and who couldn't easily be replaced. 

But I just read a story about McDonalds' staff in NYC who'd walked off the job to demand "a living wage".

Um...

I have a friend in New Hampshire who is a trained, educated paramedic who saves lives for a living and makes $1/hr more than the burger flippers are now demanding.

Do we really think that people with (potentially) NO education who LITERALLY flip burgers should get the same pay as a medic? Does anybody REALLY think that you are SUPPOSED to raise a family on minimum wage or are minimum wage jobs MEANT to be transitional, either starter jobs for kids or supplemental income for older folks?
Although, I guess Nanny Bloomberg would be happy if people stopped eating at McDonald's because burgers are now $30 to ensure that the staff gets a "living wage".
pffftt....

Look folks, it's a bad economy out there right now and there actually are people who would be happy to get paid the $7.25/hr that you are now eschewing.  You can (and in a reasonable world will) be very quickly and easily replaced.

You think getting paid minimum wage sucks?  You're right.  You hate your job flipping burgers?  You should.  You should also aspire to more and make some plans and put them into action to get out of there and into a job where you really do have value and something to offer the world.

Look into Mike Rowe's website, there is a HUGE shortage of skilled workers in this country.  Go be a plumber, carpenter, bricklayer, etc. and leave the crappy fast food jobs for the teens in high school.