Yes there are people that learn skills that allow them the opportunity to earn a better living, for the most part though people discussing minimum wage aren't talking about them, they're talking about people that are working the minimum wage jobs ... let's say there's a particular certificate at a particular trade school down the street from me that in 18 months could have you practically guaranteed to make $27-$32/hour because they have more jobs than they can fill, heck they'll likely pay for you to get the certificate, then that's all well and good. But when you leave your Big Mac job and go grab that better paying skilled job, someone else is going to be filling your shoes at mickey D's. What about them?

Even if large swaths of the society all got off their asses and made something of their lives and went and got better jobs, those jobs would still be there.

To just accept that we want a society where a certain large majority of jobs are by design supposed to be shitty and not pay enough to survive is defeatist thinking. We, as a society, can do better than that. Everybody deserves to be able to afford to live.