It’s an extremely niche job and I assume the business owner is just completely oblivious to current wage expectations. It’s the kind of thing where you would probably have an old timer and an apprentice for an extremely large geographic area.

recognizing that HS students frequently have different perspectives (and limited options as far as jobs go,) is boomer logic?

Further if you’re only working 12 hours, a livable wage needs to be more than 3x the pay rate of somebody working 40, and for those jobs, you’d be competing with everyone in retail hell to get. And to be blunt, at least in MN, the regulatory scheduling requirements for people under 18 tend to make scheduling students annoying. (like, seriously. it basically makes a normal shift rotation impossible. throw in school or social things; and many managers just decide it’s not worth it… unless the job is such that they’re desperate for anyone with a pulse.) (not the kid’s fault mind. but yeah, it’s seriously inconvenient for basically everyone except people delivering newspapers. because they have carve outs for some reason. Oh. Right. Star Tribune lobbied our legislature for them.)