Why is it the employer's responsibility to provide a living wage?

[Tonus]

I've always found the exact opposite. In my experience it was always the work-shy brown-nosers who got promoted because they wouldn't be missed compared to the people who do the work. Basically if you're the best shelf stacker in the store (or whatever you do) you'll never get promoted.

I think that depends on the type of business and/or the department. I work for an engineering firm, and while politics plays its part, people also need to know what they're doing and show that they can handle the work that comes with a promotion. Promoting someone for no other reason than sucking up is very bad for business-- you have to pay them more money and they are not likely to earn it back.

For lesser positions, it mostly comes down to how difficult you can make it to replace you and how much of a case you can make for a raise. If you make yourself sufficiently indispensable, you can agitate for more money without worrying about being replaced. If you aren't willing to get in there and do the tough negotiating, then you're likely to get less than you could.

I suppose that in a place like Wal-mart, or a department like the warehouse where items are stored, it's easier to play at petty politics because the workers are doing a job that's simple to learn and therefore they are easy to replace. Kissing up to an asshole supervisor might be the most efficient way to keep the job, and if a person lacks ambition I guess that will be as far as they get. All the assistance in the world won't make up for a lack of desire.

Me, I don't like to bother with the headaches of negotiating, so I'm going to earn some basic IT certifications before the end of the year and quit next summer. It'll suck for them, they've given me so many different responsibilities at such a relatively low wage that they're likely to collectively faint when I present my letter of resignation, but that won't be my problem. I'll be going off and doing my own thing with a pretty good fallback-- several IT certifications and 18 years of network management.