Yes, why should a fast food employee earn more than a hard working teacher or office worker?

Yes! You sum it up prefectly!

Your assertion that a capitalist economy is based on consumerism is strictly false. Capitalism is based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the free exchange of goods and services under the motivation of profit. Capitalism is no more based on consumption than any other economic model. All economies rely on buying and selling.

Now American society at large might be based on consumerism (keeping up with the jonses, massive amounts of consumer credit and debt etc.) you could certainly make that argument but Capitaism? No.

We shouldn't have to "push" down wages they should naturally fall or rise to where they need to be through individuals making the decision for themselves on how much their time and energy is worth.

There are many reasons for hiring more labor if you can afford it besides the expansion of your business. It gives you a larger pool of workers with which to spread the work load, thereby ensuring you can cover lost days of productivity when another woker is sick or on leave. It allows you to keep operations open for longer periods of time or to not close shop at all. It eases work stress on employees thereby helping them to be more productive. It isn't simply about expanding.

Going to $15/hr is an arbitrary number with absolutely NO real data to support it being the silver bullet to end poverty or create equality or raise the standard of living for those who make minimum wage today. Because we have minimum wage laws we are doomed to repeat this cycle over and over and over again and all well have to show for it is a nation of millionares who still can't afford to buy a loaf of bread.

But who is to say that certain people deserve to be paid so much more? The market is not an infallible arbiter of prices, and certainly has no moral underpinnings to speak of. If the people are making too little to live on, then they're making too little, period. 

Secondly, these things happen, especially when the side of the aisle screaming about "personal responsibility" is the one trying its damned hardest to prevent access to contraception of all kinds, or even the teaching of such in schools.

Well, if I'm an engineer, and I design infrastructure and the like, tasks that takes years of education and training, and even more time to plan designs and then execute....do you think stocking shelves at the grocery store (a job that literally a child could do if it were legal) should be paid anywhere close to the same?

If I'm a doctor, who has to do open heart surgery, diagnose symptoms with the proper medications, know just about everything about the human anatomy, etc. things that take over a decade to learn, plus clinical rotations and examinations....do you think saying "That'll be $7.85" should be paid anywhere close to the same?

Who's to say certain people deserve to be paid so much more? Well, I think common sense would dictate that they be paid so much more. A job that takes time, money, effort, education, rigorous examination, multiple interviews, etc. just to obtain should definitely be paid more than a job, like I stated before, that can be filled by any random schmo on the streets.

I agree, slightly, with your last statement, though. I hate that the people who say "you shouldn't be going out having kids" are the same people that go out and block contraception by any means necessary (either by preventing it from being covered by insurance or by using the "conscience clause") and teach abstinence only. And I would say that in this day and age, you'd have to be completely retarded not to know that sex leads to children, if you're not safe about, but I know a terrible enough percentage of kids don't know that. But at the end of the day, and I'll reiterate it a 3rd time: jobs that take no training and can be completed by a high schooler should not be paid the same as jobs that take high skills. Such is life.

I suppose i phrased myself poorly earlier. What i meant is why do the unskilled deserve to get paid so little? Basically, if we're talking about people who can't support themselves, society has to pay for that one way or another, whether it's businesses forced to pay more in wages or taxpayers ponying up for welfare programs. Might as well cut the middleman and see to it that everyone earns a living wage so long as they're employed, as if payment for unskilled labor is less than what it takes to survive, and we take for granted the idea that people "deserve" what they're paid, then it's indirectly telling these people that they don't deserve to have a place to live, food, or clothing.

So my phrasing should have been "who said these people should be paid so low" rather than "who said better-skilled people should earn so much more?"

Well, I know I wasn't saying that. But I also infer that "work hard" means making yourself more attractive to employers by increasing your skillset, in which case it would be true that many people working minimum wage "did not work hard". But in the sense of putting in 40 hours or more a week, no one in their right mind would call that lazy or not literally working hard. Working is working, no matter what you do. But if I ever say "work hard", I mean expanding your skills in order to obtain a better job. Learning a craft, a program, a trade, etc. instead of flipping burgers. I call that "hard work", in the context of the posts I've been making in this thread

Stop treating this issue as an issue of individual merit.

One person can get a degree. That person can lean a skill, earn a promotion, or find some other way to become successful.

Millions of people cannot simultaneously pull themselves out of low-wage jobs, because there is a limited number of better jobs available. The job market, as it stands today, favors low-paying work. Fast food is the fastest growing industry in the country. While, if you look at each worker individually, they can often get out of minimum wage, we as a nation are stuck with a lot of low-wage workers for the foreseeable future.

Raising minimum wage won't solve the underlying problems with our economy, but it must be addressed.

USA's minimum wage is ridiculous. Before saying it's bad for america, just research how it did for other countries.

The thing you're not understanding is that jobs need to get done regardless of skill, school, or experience.  You're making it sound like you wouldn't want to do any of those stuff, but regardless the job needs to be done.  Would you rather walk into a warehouse, rummage through boxes to find the groceries you need?  Would you rather constantly be picking up expired dairy products because the grocery clerks weren't there to pull them off the shelves?  Would you rather go to a farm, pick up your veggies, pull them out of the ground and go through a bunch of crop that isn't ready or over grown to eat?  Cause that's what happens when you get rid of people stocking grocery shelves.  These people should be given a livable wage, and to be frank should be given a wage to let them be in middle class (Which is disappearing thanks to corporate america hoarding trillions of dollars).

The other thing too with your engineering statement.  An Engineer is no more important that the workers building the buildings.  Buildings wouldn't exist without the construction companies and the "uneducated" workers puting together the structure.  There's also an issue when no engineer can ever take into consideration unknown quantities that come up during construction and the construction workers need to adapt plans.  As an example; my cousin is an electrician.  He spends a lot of times fixing up drawings because the electrical engineers draw up plans not realizing issues that occur when trying to run wires through certain boxes or areas.  Guess who gets plaid more?  

Now, I agree a person who went through post secondary education should be compensated more but it's not just cut and dry.  A surgeon can operate on you and save your life, but it's the nurses who come at beckon's call to make sure you get better.  Never seen a surgeon come every day to see any patient.  Nurses put in more work why are they compensated less?  People would die just as easily after an operation without nurses.