"I just don't think retail work commands $12/hr, even if that is what a living wage is."

Have you ever worked retail? I'm curious because disregarding babysitting every job I've ever had has been retail and I can tell you that it's never quite felt worth the $5.15 to $8.65 per hour range that I've been paid to do it. I know someone that gets paid almost $19 an hour to sit at a computer and type. Granted he has to go to a couple meetings and sometimes he has to do a presentation but his main job is filling out patient information (he doesn't work at a hospital, but for a company that manufactures specific post-surgery products) and for it he also gets a health insurance package that rivals that of my mother's who works for a state run hospital.
While I get paid less than half of what he does, with no health insurance. I don't get to sit all day, I get to sit on my breaks and that's it. Without delving to far in to my actual place of work, I am required to have a very specific knowledge of my job and while "anyone" might be able to learn or do my job not anyone could do it well.
I don't want to start into a tirade here because that's not what this was about. It just really gets on my nerves when people declare that retail workers don't do work that's worth more than they're getting, when I see every day them doing a lot more work than they're given respect for.