I'll just pop my head in here for a second, then let you guys go back to your individual discussions...
While the minimum wage is generally considered to be the lowest amount a company HAS to pay an employee, it was originally designed as a means to counteract substandard wages in sweatshops. In other words, the minimum wage, as originally designed was to be better than substandard. The "minimum" in "minimum wage" was considered to be the minimum amount a person could live on. No one would get rich living on the minimum wage, but no one would starve either. I was meant to be a livable wage.
Now in most areas of the country, you can't survive, even as a single person with no dependents, on the minimum wage without additional assistance. It is not a livable wage anymore. People who don't have to worry about the minimum wage often talk about moving where the jobs are as if a: there were a plethora of better paying jobs out there, especially in an environment like today's where there are 5 unemployed people for every single job being generated, and b: moving itself isn't a tremendous financial difficulty, like the poor can act like hobos, throw their kit in a bindle hop on the rails and arrive in a big city with a smile and their potential and find all them jobs no one else seems to be able to find. It's a crock, and only the fortunate and the foolish would believe otherwise.
Some states (if not now, then in the past) mandate a higher minimum wage than the federal does, because they're aware that someone who works for the federal minimum wage often can't afford rent AND food. It seems that enough people in power in Florida would like that not to happen. After all, if resort employees all got paid an extra buck an hour, then a vacation might cost an extra 100 dollars per family, and people would stop flocking in Florida. But now, we may be witnessing a "slow bleed" approach to Florida tourism - companies cut corners by paying their employees cheaply, then cut corners further by limiting on-the-job training and other perks. So they're getting employees who are "content," or at least are not in aposition to complain, to get paid suck low wages. This means their customers are getting a less-satisfactory experience, and are less inclined to return, or at least return as much.
An educational approach might help; for instance, a national campaign that educates Americans that "the best price" for them might result in a substandard of living for other Americans, and if paying a few extra pennies for certain items means more Americans can live better - and thus contribute more to the economy themselves - then it's downright patriotic to want people to be paid well, even if it subsequently means more money out of your pocket; it all eventually comes back around, like karma and John Travolta's career.
Unfortunately, such efforts are oft undermined by shall-we-say certain types of Americans who would rather believe that type of logic leads to socialism, and the only true way to be patrotic is to exploit or be exploited; work hard for what you get so that maybe one day you can make someone else work even harder to get what THEY get until only a few can afford to get anything, and the rest can't afford to DO anything to get anywhere to get anything else.
Until that way of thinking is negated, minimized, struck down as being bad for America...until CEOs who get paid tremendous amounts of money realize that giving themselves less and putting more into their companies (and their employees' pockets) pays huger dividends all around - nothing will get better. Not for WDW CMs. Not for Orlando. Not for America.
