Stop going to these large corporations for wage jobs, like McDonald’s, Walmart, Wendy’s, Burger King, Kroger, etc. Find locally/family owned companies looking for employees in urban areas.
I used to work at a Donato’s Pizza and a Kroger that paid $8 and $10 per hour respectively. I keep looking around at other big brand name chains like McDonald’s and Subway, claiming the same BS “Up $13-16 an hour” but in reality they’ll start you at $9-10 an hour. They don’t care about their employees, they just don’t. You are merely a cog in the machine, and basically just a statistical asset to these huge corporations.
Then my friend recommended this local wedding venue that he found on LinkedIn that was hiring urgently, paying $17 an hour. No BS, and even had a solid structure of a 50¢ raise every 25 shifts. They care about your community and their workers, and I even get free food and cake every shift.
It’s so much fun and easy I’m now about to get a second job at a local yatcht club, also family owned, paying $16.50 per hour straight from the get go. Now that I’ve been looking around, the majority of these locally owned companies pay way above mininum wage and offer unique work environments. And more than likely, you create a relationship with the owner of the company, which a lot of your other coworkers do, and are actually treated like a human being. A few recommendations of places to look at are golf courses/country clubs, vineyards, rentable venues, locally owned restaurants/stores, marinas, stadiums, etc.
You will have to really search though because these big companies taking up all the advertising space. But fun and decent paying jobs are out there, unfortunately you do have to put in some work to find them!
TL;DR: Majority locally owned companies (in large urban areas) offer generous pay and treat their employees as humans. Stop taking jobs at large corporations.