Minimum wage is an odd one for me and in no way clear cut.
Back when I were a lad there was an old dude who used to spend Saturdays with a mate in a little hut on a town car park taking tickets and making change. Telly on there with whatever (some sport I guess) and his sandwiches. Paid a pittance really but it was nice to see and that dude really appreciated the boost from what I could tell. There are also any number of classes in society that will take something, anything and most of the time I as an employer will opt for someone more capable if I can. However it is not all codgers, cripples and carers.
At the same time working a reasonable number of hours for minimum wage (never mind the zero hours contract stuff***) pretty much nails your mobility -- want to move 3 towns over to do something else? Good luck with that one. Other side of the country (for most in the US distance wise that is about the other side of the average state).... heh, classic. Going for the living wage thing then I often find it amusing that those calling for such things simultaneously call the youth of today shiftless layabouts for not buying houses (or getting on* the property market), not having kids (an expensive hobby that) or coming the other way and decrying them not buying shit they like and thus such products being retired (my favourite probably still has to be the one I saw about fabric conditioner but enough of that, though cars form an interesting case study). The "42% of minimum wage workers live with a parent or some relative" I saw in a poster above me as I started to write this would almost seem immediately questioned with "but how many would if they could?". In discussions of employment so many that want to claim their stuff is getting it done seem so quick to ignore under employment or those that more or less gave up.
If 4 and a half times annual salary is a on the edge of risky mortgage for most (to say nothing of it being a hard one -- 25 year term on that for a vaguely realistic deposit and accordant interest rates... I would not care for it) then 4 and half times 25 grand (which is something many aspire to -- 17 is about what one might expect for the classic cashier or office drone.
https://www.nursingtimesjobs.com/article/nursing-differences-in-roles-and-salaries/ if you fancy a mid tier job like nursing which these days requires fairly decent up front education. Just in case someone wants to note it being a few years ago then current bands
https://www.rcn.org.uk/employment-and-pay/nhs-pay-scales-2017-18 ) is 130K or so with a decent deposit (easier said than done for that one too -- if rent and council tax will take you to around the same price as mortgage then trying to save under those conditions...). That will barely get you a pot to piss in for most places, and for quite a few others may see you have to leave where you grew up** to even stand a hope. Maybe you need to get a partner (never mind that those yelling "get off my lawn" could have afforded to do it solo and probably have had a kept wife when it was their time). Housing might be a few other factors at play (the rise of buy to let, financing for not so rich people to become mini property magnates and a shrinking supply because demand far far outstrips it, to say nothing of effective limits on new supply by way of excessive regulation) but shelter is still a popular thing for people to enjoy.
Pension? Better hope national insurance is still a meaningful concept when it comes your time.
To be fair I tend to laugh at such people claiming one needs to do all that to adult but not everybody has my approach to the world. I feel for anybody trying to do classic adult in the modern world on average working stiff wages, never mind that fixed costs are also higher than they might have been (maybe you can be a functioning member of modern society without that mobile phone and broadband though). I tried it myself once -- was in a better position than many at the start, did all that was required and a bit more besides, was prepared to put in the time and effort, was prepared to make the sacrifices... still chewed me up and spat me out (or more like I pulled the cord before it got bad). Fortunately there are other ways to play if you can take being an undesirable.
*the idea of a "starter home" and moving every decade or so is odd to me. One and done is not necessarily the goal either but it almost feels like housing trying to double dip. Maybe prices will rise for just you and somewhere you can move into will somehow have stayed the same. Similarly in my token search for current prices most things in those sorts of price ranges were typically leasehold affairs.
**if you grew up in London or somewhere like Cornwall (bottom left of the UK, nice and sunny compared to most of the rest, nice beaches...) then I wish you even greater luck.
***when I saw what happens with those then the notion that the market is some kind of almost benevolent, self correcting affair... nah. Couple that with somebody that maybe got burned by loans/finance (and they push it hard and frequently ignore any kind of due diligence, thankfully the UK has not followed the US just yet into considering credit an important metric for just about everything).
I also have to note a rising tide lifts all ships so it could get to be a bit of a vicious circle. In the end I have seen people try top down economics, trickle down, bottom up.... and it is all smoke and mirrors with a lot of back handers for anybody that can or can pay someone to figure out how to game the system for them. A completely free market is a horrible master and at the same time nobody is ever going to be able to calculate an optimal solution to create a managed one (never mind predict new technologies or events that change the game -- we are already staring down the barrel of automation and a rising skills curve that probably outpaces biology). I suppose in the end I will look at the law -- it tends to have fundamental aspects that everybody agrees on, things that seem almost prescient, patches to sort an immediate problem and kick the can down the road a bit, and of course bad ideas. Such a thing seems like a reasonable plan for economics as well.
He/them/IT does