So my 16yo son wants a summer job. He should be able to stock shelves 40 hrs/wk for $1000/wk (the living wage in my metropolitan area)?
Not allowing there to be entry level jobs that pay below the cost of living prevents youth (and others in certain situations) from being able to enter the market, thereby reducing their skill weekend they do enter later, which easily leads to involuntary unemployment. It actually creates the situation that's attempting to be solved. The higher the cost to businesses for these entry level jobs, the fewer employed in them, and thus the higher the unemployment.
So during not-summer who is stocking shelves? My guess to your answer is that high schoolers will, but then who will work fast food restaurants during school hours?
Too many jobs are considered "entry level". If people used them as stepping stone jobs, the companies would cease to function properly.
For example my father thinks that all fast food positions except Manager are entry level. But I can guarantee you he'd be pissed if only the manager was working in the mornings when he wants coffee.
And you don't think solving that equation from the other end should be what happens? Just pay people more ad nauseum while the cost of living continually skyrockets?
In my experience many jobs don't have existing employees to teach anyone, you are the only person who does that job, so if you don't know how to do something you need to be able to figure it out/learn it on your own.
The cross-industry term for "no experience required" is "entry level", not unskilled.
I don't think that there's such a thing as unskilled jobs, because no company would ever advertise that they are seeking "unskilled" laborers. Even jobs like flipping burgers at McDonalds are treated with a certain degree of seriousness and professional reverence by the company themselves. They want to hire people who are quick on their feet, are familiar with how to cook, can memorize orders including substitutions, multitask in the kitchen, and so on. Those are undeniably skills that one must train, either independently or on the job itself.
Unskilled labor is entirely a fictitious term invented by the media to describe jobs that they deem unimportant or trivial, with the sole purpose of denigrating the demographic of people who work those jobs as a primary means to earn a living.
"Experience" is generally defined as prior work history in the same field, not occupational knowledge. An entry level job necessarily means that you can apply for the job and still have a chance to get hired even if it is your first ever job (or, in a perfect world, that's what it would mean, yet we live in a world where "entry level" job postings exist that also require 3-5 years of prior work history in the field).
Of course, just because it's an entry level position, that doesn't mean that someone who knows nothing about the job they are applying for can get it. That's why I specified that every job has skills that you need to train either on the job or independently. In the case of python programming, you would absolutely need those skills down pat before applying to the job, because the expectation is that you are sufficiently competent with the language and can start on projects right away.
In my experience, maybe 20% of your job is based on what you know about the language going in. The rest is learning that particular companies pipelines, practices, and code base. Junior devs are absolutely expected to learn on the job, both about the product and development in general.
Junior devs are expected to learn on the job, but to come in with a solid base level of proficiency.
My internships and first junior position didn't require me to know the language they used, but they required me to know a similar language and be able to program already. Being able to at least write pseudocode was absolutely required for those interviews.
Entry-level doesn't mean no experience required, it means no professional experience required.
An entry level engineering job requires an engineering degree but no work experience. That's literally 4 years of required experience.
An entry level software engineer job requires you to have a CS degree, bootcamp, or equivalent self-taught hobbyist experience. I haven't heard of any recent entry level software jobs that would accept someone who hasn't even written a hello world before.
An entry level physician job requires you to have completed a medical residency and medical degree.
The idea of forcing Phony Stark to be a farm laborer for a week is quite hilarious, though - he'd probably die within 24 hours (I did say it would be hilarious, after all).