That said, I think the budget is pretty skewed as well, and assumes a few things that I propose are incorrect. For starters, having a car payment (or really a car at all) is an incredibly bad idea. I'd also posit that living in a non-shared situation is also un-ideal. I'd also suggest that if you're not making enough money, you shouldn't have a cellphone nor cable TV, but I suppose you could qualify for the infamous "Obamaphone". IMHO you could cut $600/mo off that spend then tack on $40/mo for a bus pass, tack on $80/mo for a reasonable healthcare bill, $30/mo for some cheap DSL or even dialup so you're not totally off the grid. That leaves you with $450 and only working the MCDs job.
This obviously isn't to say it'd be a marvellous life, but its not working two jobs/etc.
I think the other disconnect is that people expect a "job" to be a "career" as well, and IMHO thats just wrong in this situation. Someone who's working a min-wage job is either just getting into the workforce (as a teenager or something) or someone who can't get anything else. The someone who can't get anything else, I don't know what to do about that, but its not the problem of wage payers to help them out.
If you're on minimum wage, internet is easily accessible from a library, McDonalds, or Starbucks. Or find a landlord offering it bundled.
Cheap cell plans from $20 upwards do exist.
I'm not saying this is ideal, but then again, we're talking about minimum wage. I used to work at McDonalds in Canada and one of my co-workers worked her way up to manager and managed to go to college part time. Granted, she was also living at home with her parents and our post-secondary education is heavily subsidized up here.