Your sympathy doesn’t change the laws of economics. As long as tons of people (including millions of illegals) are competing for these jobs, the wages will stay low.
You get high wages when your level of education and training would make it tough for your employer to find a replacement should you depart.
Since literally any idiot can work at McDonalds, the employees have zero leverage.
And even if McDonalds did buckle and start paying everyone $12.00/hr, they would soon go out of business since Burger King, Wendy’s etc would keep paying their people $7.00 - thus allowing them to keep prices low and take away McDonalds’ customers.
Bottom line, the solution is not to wave a government wand and force the company to pay more. Deport all illegals and close the borders. Without the huge oversupply of labor, the labor of these fast food workers would start to become more valuable.
Same’s true for farm work...
Liberal elites don’t think we care that we’re paying for illegals, paying for unemployment for blacks, and paying with low wages for the rest of us. We notice - we care.
Where did I say the government should get involved? I said I would like to see them get a bit more pay but the market will decide.