You get what you put in. If a company wants 5 star workers, it should pay them for it.
I would suggest $13 for entry level positions.
$16 for shift supervisors.
$20 for assistant managers.
and a salary of 42-50k for managers based on experience.
It's not much to ask given the amount of profits they make.
Why would they pay more than they have to for unskilled labor?
First of all, if they aren't having trouble hiring, then obviously, people are willing to take those jobs and consider an acceptable wage. They always have a choice to not work at Starbucks.
Secondly, if they choose not to work at Starbucks, they have the choice to earn an education and a skillset that allows them to command a higher wage. It's an economic theory; the theory of comparative advantage. If you don't have a comparative advantage at a particular task over the competition, then your price gets driven down.
Clearly, workers at Starbucks perform tasks. And I'm sure they would like more money for their tasks. However, there's competition for those jobs, and the competition can perform the tasks just as well. Since there's no comparative advantage from one person to the next in the unskilled labor market, Starbucks can drive down wage costs.
Now, Starbucks does have to pay a lot of money to very specialized accountants who understand how to minimize the taxes paid on the profits they earn. This is because tax law and tax accounting are very specialized skillsets, with the potential for one employee to make an employer a significant sum of money, all while existing in an arena where there isn't the same supply.
When you affect minimum wage, you affect free market economic theory. I like to think most of us in the western world have a problem with that. I don't want an incentive to people to continue to work low-skilled jobs. I want incentives for society to educate itself, learn very specialized and high demand tasks, grow its intelligence, and use that comparative advantage in a global economy to exert power and influence over economies that don't have this intelligence and skillset.
If America is going to win the global economic war, it will do so on the backs of intelligent people who know more than their counterparts in developing economies. It will not do so because more people now have an incentive to work at Starbucks.
We fundamentally disagree. Not that anyone gives a shit what I think.