Why should people who might have not even graduated from high school and never went to college automatically make $20 an hour? Why should they even make $15? Some college graduates don't even make that much and they might have had to take out student loans they have to pay back.
What incentive is there for people to get an education if they can make that much money without a college degree?
Because we have bills to pay and roofs to keep over our heads, too.
Where do you get this idea that everyone needs to go to college? The vast majority of jobs do not require specialized formal education. This "you need a degree" idea is only from the past few decades, due to the switchover to a service and tech based economy. Before, all you had to do was get a good blue collar union job snd you'd be set for life. You could raise a family and own a home just with that, doing manual labor.
Going to college would be a waste of time for most people, and probably most of the people in college are wasting their time with useless degrees. Not to mention that, unless you're wealthy or on a scholarship, you're going to rack up huge amounts of debt. It's just that, because the economy has been so upended and the working class has been so destroyed, the only jobs that pay really well are tech jobs that require degrees. Most people aren't suited for those sorts of jobs, either, which is just sitting around and staring at screens. That's especially not good for men and boys, who are already failing in school. College is mostly a female thing now.
Are white collar jobs somehow more valuable to society than blue collar, working class, retail, etc. jobs? Let all grocery and food workers walk off the job and see how long society lasts. We're the ones holding up society.
