Long ago, I made the decision I would hitch my wagon to someone else's horse. My whole future income stream is tied to making sure that horse is pulling my wagon. If that horse dies, or my wagon gets cut lose, I have to scramble right quick to find another pull. I can go from looking set for life, to having nothing, all because of a decision made by someone else that I have almost no control over. I'm not complaining as it's the path I chose.

Then take a look at those kids working minimum wage at McDonalds. Some of them have car payments and rent payments. If anything goes wrong, they don't have much ability to generate the cash to deal with it. So yes, they sometimes work for 10 bucks when it costs them 12 bucks an hour to live (often renting a room inside a shared house; not a great life). If a customer complains, some of them lose that minimum wage job. I've seen it happen. There's almost no upside working there beyond just surviving, and they can still end up not having a horse pulling their wagon.