Fanciful rant worthy of a Hollywood movie, a book or a conspiracy theory. But just a suggestion that this issue is just one part of something much bigger.
Not as many stones to step to anymore in this country so there isnt much of a choice. They are in other countries where people are much more tractable. And that is the model. They get the jobs so the incentive to push on everybody is to be more like them.
K-12 schools are currently much harder than in the good old days. 3 hrs of homework every day and more on the weekends are the norm not the exception. The school year is getting longer and summers are getting shorter. Sounds good and parents like to think that will help them get into college. However there are some that want differently. They want people to finish high school but no further. So make the cost of that higher education skyrocket so that fewer and fewer can actually get it. Even with the high cost make it harder to get the money from other sources. To get it you must have your own money or be sponsored by other people with money. No govt help. Then give an 'option'. Less education but more training for 'trades' and the 'workforce'. Might be something like fixing a car. Might be learning how to write a computer program. No need for a diploma. Just get a trade certificate. Change the 2-year colleges entirely into trade schools not a mix. In other words, get the skills without the bother of actually educating people to learn how to think. Such things are called 'liberal' and creates subversives that want to destroy America.
The question is why this is happening and how does that relate to this whole 'minimum wage' thing. This group that fights it actually also wants to remove it entirely, not just keep it the same. Why bother removing it at all unless the idea is to make wages less? It is just one small part of the age old process of the rulers and the rest. They say its strictly business or making things 'better' but its much more. Regardless if its some union leader, CEO, or Don Corleone. You gotta love how the very people that use "working towards the American Dream" as their argument are also the ones that actively make it harder to reach it. As the old saying goes, it takes money to make money. So what do you do? Make it harder to get the money needed to start with. The only thing that actually works is continually fighting to maintain a balance evolving and adjusting as we go along to keep it that way. We cannot just stand still as everything else changes around us. Nor can we move too much. It is a constant battle that must be fought against those that want to tilt that balance one way or the other. Too many on both sides want to make drones out of people even if they actively dont know it or understand it. The only practical difference would be who is on top.