Personally if I ran a company I would be more fair in how I pay my employees and there would be more profit sharing. Low skill jobs would start at minimum wage but there would be a raise ladder to climb over the years and you would be able to make more. So to use a grocery store as an example, someone who has been there for say 5+ years and doing a good job would probably make like 22/hour or something. There would be a cap, but everyone would also collectively get a raise once a year if the company is doing well. Or maybe instead of a raise, a nice bonus. Even that is low to live on with costs of living always going up, but it's still better than 14.
A corporation *CAN* afford that, easily. They just don't want to because if they don't make more profit than the year before then they consider it a failure. That whole system is just ridiculous and not sustainable, you can't ALWAYS make more than the year before. But they do, they find ways. Usually at employee and customer expenses. Crap employee pay/conditions, and crap products. Products in general now days are made way cheaper and cheaper than before and are lower quality. It's not the customers that benefit from the fact that it's cheaper to produce them that way. Some products cost less than they used to be, but they also don't last as long. I would rather pay 2 grand for an appliance and have it last 20+ years and be designed so it's easier to repair if it does break, than to pay $600 for one that breaks after 5 years and is impossible to repair.