You keep harping on the obvious fact that there are more minimum wage workers than there are supervisory and management positions to which they can be promoted. Yet companies struggle to fill these positions. Why? Shouldn't there be a long waiting list based on your point? Like the years it takes to get Giants season tickets? Or is it possible that some choose to remain poor because it's a lot easier to bitch about your lot in life and blame the system for your failures than it is to expend the time and effort to qualify for a better job?

American workers average over 40 hours per week and under utilize their available vacation time despite the fact that most companies no longer even tacitly encourage that behavior. In fact if you keep up with HR trends you would know that the biggest companies are strongly encouraging their high performers to take more time off and to disconnect when they do so. Why don't they? By choice. Likewise with my irrelevant actions referenced above. Those were also choices.

If you are arguing that I should have been able to choose to work one job for 40 hours or less and make a wage that would have supported a wife and two children without special skills or education to have earned such a wage, then we will have to disagree.