I've worked for a number of different companies since I was a teenager and first got a job. Without a doubt, the cheapest motherfuckers on the planet with the most squalid working conditions are the biggest companies I've worked for. I think part of the key to being a top corporation is being stingy as fuck.
Saving $50 per employee when you have 5 employees is $250. It's nice, but not a game changer. 50 employees: $2,500, 500 employees: $25,000. When you have more employees squeezing pennies out of your workers becomes a relevant boon to the company.
Weirdly that's been the opposite of my experience, got paid a lot(in local terms) for doing barely anything in an internship. Paid not well for a small business where I knew the owners, but I know why, which is that they basically recruited people who wouldn't bother negotiating.
I'm kind of shocked at this, you must be really wealthy and/or out of touch. I make minimum wage at my current job which is 13.65 an hour in the state of Colorado. I make less now than I ever have before at any other job and I spent thousands on a technical degree. Many people all over the country only make minimum wage. Bartenders and jobs like that come to mind, they are often paid $2 or less an hour with "tips" that add up to minimum wage.
Not wealthy nor in a wealthy area but I live in a pretty densely populated state so I just don't see it. Even convenience store jobs pay $18-20/hr here.
I've been working since 14 and that may have been the only year I made the minimum wage too. I don't generally look at this sort of data so thank you for sharing your anecdotes!
Maybe it's a regional thing then, those types of jobs in my area all earn more than the federal minimum wage and even the stage minimum which is $15/hr now.
That said, aside from DG, those other companies are franchise operations. Still, thank you for honestly answering and not just resorting to name calling.
I no longer work there but in the last year I worked for a "leading global source for education materials" according to Forbes, worth 2.8 billion and I was paid minimum wage as a retail employee.