Fast food and retail are built off the disposable worker model. When you hire a disposable worker once they make it to a year they become expendable because if you got rid of them you could plug another worker in there cheaper. Workers are just cogs.It isn't that simple. It's mathematically impossible for everyone to just "move on" from working a low-wage job, meaning someone has to work these types of jobs. Not everyone has the opportunity to go to college and find a better-paying career. Hell, even people who do earn college degrees are struggling right now.
Plus, most people I see working fast-food jobs are older women who probably have families to feed. You think they're working there out of laziness? Most fast-food and retail jobs are physically taxing and the work is stressful. Why would someone supporting a family work there if they could just move on? Not everyone has options. These jobs aren't supposed to be long-term careers, but some people really have no choice.
Not to mention, according to Forbes, McDonald's brought in about $27 billion in revenue last year. They can afford to at least pay their low-level workers a livable wage. Of course their greed would get in the way of that. These corporations/CEOs are running people into the ground and paying them embarrassingly low wages, all while trying to convince us that they can't afford to pay higher salaries.
It's easy to say people should just leave and find better jobs, but we are still in a recession, brehs. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.
The problem is school is a luxury for people who don't have to work all day and night to support themselves. If you don't do school in your early 20s you screw yourself because it becomes almost impossible to dedicate the kinda time you need to it once you're out there supporting yourself.