16-30 year olds have not had money "shoved down their throats" by the workplace. There's an important distinction there - reward for effort outside of your family is very different from reward for existence within it. By way of comparison, my generation was expected to work after school. I got my first after-school job in 4th grade, and held one or more through matriculation of college. The one summer I wasn't "working" I was mixing in the clubs 50-70hrs a week while also pursuing 20 credits… it didn't feel like "work" because I was being grossly underpaid. Compare and contrast: if you graduate now, you'll be expected to take an unpaid internship. When I was in college, engineering majors could get $18-20 an hour as co-ops years before they had a degree. Yes, everyone has "things they want to do in life naturally." Many of them require money. It's foolish to presume that money is its own incentive; it's a means to an end. Which is why when I say "liberty without opportunity is tyranny" that "opportunity" is the ability to strive. The ability to strive means providing for more than a bare minimum of resources. Discretionary resources are called "money." You're also flat out wrong about minimum wage. It helps a lot. "The market will simply readjust" is a common, unfounded libertarian talking point. The minimum wage has been raised. If the two were positively correlated, a graph of real minimum wage vs. CPI should be complimentary.